BRITAIN: British prime minister Tony Blair has announced the creation of a special Muslim taskforce to tackle "head-on" Islamic extremism and the issues and arguments that might lead disaffected British Muslims into terrorism.
The announcement came at the end of a Downing Street summit yesterday attended by 25 community leaders, including MPs, peers, educationalists and businessmen, as well as Conservative leader Michael Howard and Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.
However, the post-bombing political consensus is facing its first test amid fresh questions about the failure of intelligence in the run-up to the July 7th attacks on London's transport network and the relevance of the Iraq war as a "motivation and focus" for terrorist activity in the UK. A top secret report by Whitehall's Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre (JTAC) - leaked to the New York Times - advised just three weeks before the London bombings that there was "not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK".
Worryingly for Mr Blair, the leaked report also threatened to revive debate about the domestic security consequences of Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, stating: "Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist related activity in the UK."
Mr Blair's avowed determination to get tough with extremist clerics was also under the spotlight last night, with pressure mounting over next month's planned visit to Manchester by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim cleric who has praised suicide bombings against Israel and is barred from entering the US.
At the same time Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed - sometimes known as "the Tottenham Ayatollah" - broke silence to effectively blame the British public for the London bombings, by re-electing Mr Blair as prime minister in last May's general election. In an interview with the London Evening Standard, Sheikh Bakri denounced the London bombings while insisting Britain had brought the atrocity upon itself. "I blame the British government and I blame the British people," he said.
"The British people did not make enough effort to stop its own government committing its own atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. They showed Tony Blair full support when they elected him prime minister again, even after he waged war against Iraq." Sheikh Bakri said he deplored all violence: "I believe the [ London] bombing was devastation for everybody ... We need to stop the cycle of bloodshed. I blame the British government because for years we were advising it would end in violence because different parts of the Muslim world were fighting back. But I always said if I see anybody I would stop them."
The Community Security Trust, an agency representing the Jewish community, said Sheikh Bakri was a dangerous man who should go back to Syria. "The organisations he has been associated with have radicalised young Muslims and set them on the conveyor belt that leads to them becoming terrorists.
"He is a threat and a dangerous man and other countries have found no difficulty getting rid of such people."
Home secretary Charles Clarke will make a statement to MPs this afternoon detailing his progress in discussions with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats about new anti-terrorist laws - including that of indirectly promoting or glorifying terrorism.