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Blair Govt. bid to assuage Muslims' feelings

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON DEC. 26. The British Government is to step up efforts to assure the country's Muslims that the war on terrorism is not an attack on Islam amid fears that a military intervention in Iraq might be exploited by fringe elements to whip up emotions.

Ministers were reported to be concerned after a new poll showed that a majority of Muslims believed that western nations were waging a war on Islam in the name of fighting terrorism and tackling weapons of mass destruction. They also believed that Muslims had replaced communist as "the West's bogeyman''.

The findings were seen as a setback to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair's well-publicised attempts to win over the Muslim opinion on the issue.

He has hosted Muslim leaders at Downing Street and written articles for Arabic newspapers in his bid to counter the perception that Islam is being targeted.

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, whose parliamentary constituency has a sizeable Muslim population, has also been drafted in to help with the campaign by giving interviews to "Muslim'' radio stations ahead of a possible attack on Iraq.

But obviously, the campaign has not been effective with Labour Party's own Muslim activists expressing concern on the issue.

Shahid Malik, a member of the party's national executive and Mr. Blair's handyman on Muslim-related issues, said it was true that there was a "very real perception'' among Muslims that a war on terrorism was a war against Islam.

However, he condemned attempts by extremist groups to exploit this.

Fears that such groups might use a war with Iraq to inflame Muslim opinion were confirmed when Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, leader of the fanatic al-Muhajiroun, warned of "retaliation'' by Muslims if they believed that Islam was under attack. "We always believed that this is a war against Islam..

.I see Tony Blair as much as George Bush leading the campaign,'' he said adding that Muslims abroad had a "right to retaliate''.

At the height of the war in Afghanistan, he claimed that he recruited hundreds of Muslim youths to fight along side the Taliban, though his claims were widely dismissed as a "boast''.

A BBC poll, which is reported to have raised fresh concerns in government circles, showed that 70 per cent Muslims did not agree with Mr. Blair and the U.S. President, George W. Bush's that the war on terror had nothing to do with Islam.

A whopping 84 per cent opposed an attack on Iraq without a fresh UN mandate, and 85 per cent said Britain should not commit its troops without a vote in parliament.

There was a widespread view that terrorist acts like the one in Bali were being unjustifiably blamed on Al-Qaeda.

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