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| quote: | British Muslims offer help in bombs probe
by Lachlan Carmichael Mon Jul 2, 10:04 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - British Muslim leaders urged their communities Monday to help fight extremism after three failed car bombings, amid signs that the new government may be better able to win over their "hearts and minds."
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Prime Minister Gordon Brown has argued that cooperation from Britain's estimated 1.6 million Muslims is key to defeating the threat from Islamist militants at home and abroad.
Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, urged Muslims to support the government and security services, saying "all the evidence suggests" the three failed attacks were carried out by Islamists.
He assured the "government of his support against the forces of anarchy and extremism and called upon the Muslim community to help uproot extremism" in its midst.
The British Muslim Initiative (BMI), a lobby group which promotes Muslim participation in public life, echoed the remarks.
"Whoever was responsible for planting the devices clearly intended to cause maximum damage and loss of innocent lives.... We urge all British Muslims to fully cooperate with the authorities to apprehend and bring to justice the perpetrators," the BMI said.
Siddiqui said he hoped it would be easier to cooperate with the Brown government than with that of his predecessor Tony Blair.
"I think there is a distinct difference" between the two governments in reacting to extremist threats, he said.
The responses so far from "Gordon Brown and his home secretary (Jaqui Smith) are more measured that we would have expected from Tony Blair," he said without elaborating.
The Guardian newspaper said Brown shunned the "politics of fear" with his sober responses to the threat, while Blair was more impulsive when he announced "the rules of the game" had changed after the July 2005 bombings on London transport.
Brown's spokesman said Monday that the government has been keeping in touch with Muslim organisations, though not the prime minister himself.
"As we urge vigilance on the public, as we increase the security levels, we also have to ensure that we need to do more to win hearts and minds across all communities.
"We are in constant contact with all of those affected by the London incident."
On Sunday, Hazel Blears, whom Brown appointed as the communities secretary, spoke to a Muslim conference at Ghamgol Sharif Mosque in Birmingham as part of the government's efforts to win the "hearts and minds" of British Muslims.
"I pledge today that the government will work with people in every community working to tackle violent extremism and terrorism," she said.
Mohammed Sarwar, a member of the governing Labour Party and Britain's first Muslim member of parliament, told a Glasgow mosque gathering at the weekend: "We should be together against those who want to divide us."
Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said there was "a sense of relief" at news reports that those arrested in connection with the failed attacks were allegedly citizens of Middle Eastern countries.
The shock of the July 7, 2005 suicide bombings, which killed 56 people and injured 700 others in London, was compounded when Britons discovered that the four bombers were British citizens.
However, he suggested government appeals for help were misdirected, saying the Muslim communities did not have the same resources as the government.
"Let's not make unreasonable demands on the community," Abdullah said.
"People have been engaged, trying to come up for solutions, for creative ideas to deal with this problem. Muslims have not been sitting back in a state of apathy. They are as much victims as anyone else," he said.
He said that Brown seems to be saying the right things by stressing not just security but also winning support and cooperation.
"If you want the help of the community, as it is being demanded, then you win that trust, by not alienating them," he said.
>>SOURCE<< |
could this be the start of Muslims starting to take back their religion from the pigs that have hijacked it in the name of Allah?? Let us wait to see what takes hold..........
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for god sakes you people invented the focking language 
