British Muslim leaders and Prime Minister Tony Blair discussed ways to tackle radical Islamists on Tuesday after the London bombings, but face a tough task to win round disaffected young Muslims. Senior imams, Muslim politicians and representatives of the Muslim Council of Britain went to Blair's Downing Street office for an hour-long meeting.
"There was a strong desire from everybody there to make sure we establish the right mechanisms for people to be able to go into the community and confront this ... evil ideology, take it on and defeat it," Blair told a news conference afterwards.
Blair said the government and Muslims would set up a task force to tackle the problem.
But radical Muslims dismissed the meeting as a sham and even some moderates said they were suspicious of Blair's agenda.
"The whole focus has been on trying to put the blame on Islam and the Muslim leadership," said Ahmed Versi, editor of the Muslim News, Britain's biggest-selling Muslim newspaper.
He said there was deep concern in the Muslim community "about how far Blair may try and impose some kind of secular interpretation of Islam in his declared aim of helping Muslims to find a 'moderate and true voice'".
The London attacks of July 7, and the revelation that the bombers were British Muslims and not foreign militants, has sent shock waves through Britain's Islamic community of 1.6 million, mostly ethnic Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis.
While condemning the bombings, Muslim leaders have had to accept there are radicals in their midst who advocate violence and preach hatred of the West.
Some Muslims have called for reform in Britain's mosques, which they say are out of touch with young Muslims. Others have urged police to clamp down on radical Islamist groups who regularly canvas outside mosques and on university campuses.
One such group, Al Muhajiroun, disbanded last year but its former members are still active. Its former leader in Britain, Anjem Choudary, said Tuesday's meeting was an irrelevance.
"The type of so-called Muslims at this meeting are those who toe the government line," he said. "They are the lackeys of the British government. They're the ones who have been appointed by Tony Blair to be the official voice of the Muslims."
Choudary said Britain would inevitably be attacked again by Islamist militants if it refused to change its foreign policy in Iraq, the Middle East and Kashmir.
"For us, the main objectives are to work to implement the sharia wherever we are and obviously to support the jihad wherever it is taking place," he told Reuters.
The British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group which has come under scrutiny for alleged links to the London bombers, a charge it denies, dismissed the meeting as "no more than a photo opportunity".
"The link between British foreign policy in the Muslim world and the resultant radicalisation of the entire Muslim people was completely ignored in these discussions," said Imran Waheed, the group's representative in Britain.
Faced with such militancy, the Muslim Council of Britain has an uphill struggle.
While it is an influential umbrella group which brings together some 400 British Muslim organisations, it has come under fire from some young Muslims who say it is out of touch with their feelings.
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