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July 13, 2005

Blair Wants To Mobilize 'Moderate And True Voice Of Islam'

"A week after four bombs killed at least 52 people on subway trains and a bus during London's rush hour, Britons are stunned that the presumed killers were British, born and bred," notes Matthew Schofield of Knight Ridder Newspapers. He wrote on July 13, 2005:

Anti-terrorism officials, who have always hoped that younger Muslims raised in Great Britain would reject radical teachings about Islamic holy war, worry about what the attacks mean about the future of security here.

"It's exactly what nobody wanted to hear in this case," said Paul Cornish, who heads the international security program for the British research center Chatham House. "These are normal people from normal lives who, as far as we know, woke up one morning and decided to blow up an underground train.

"That means not only that we didn't know about them, but that we couldn't have, at least before they acted. It means Londoners are going to have to get used to suicide bombings as a part of life."Mr. Schofield also noted that, "Prime Minister Tony Blair told Parliament on Wednesday [July 13, 2005] that police work alone couldn't solve the problem of homegrown terrorists. He said there was a need to "mobilize the moderate and true voice of Islam" if officials were ever to make real progress in overcoming radicalism."

The best way to diffuse radicalism is not to take part in military adventures in Muslim lands, and to withdraw from Iraq. Besides, it's naive to expect Muslims to passively sit back and let Western nations do whatever they want to Muslims. The new generation is not like the older generation whose leaders tremble when the West speaks.

For more of Mr. Schofield's analysis, see "Bombers were `normal' Britons; officials fear homegrown terrorism.

Posted by Munir Umrani at July 13, 2005 09:49 PM

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