Muslims feel heat after UK arrests

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />LONDON/LUTON: Barely 24 hours after police arrested eight British born-and-bred Pakistani youths in the UK’s biggest counter-terrorism operation, the country’s embattled and fearful South Asian Muslim community has launched a craven ''Operation Save Face'' to join Bush and Blair’s war on terror.<br /><br /><img align="left" src="/photo/593092.cms" alt="/photo/593092.cms" border="0" />The backdoor entry into the so-called battle against bloodshed comes as Britain became the first Western country (on Tuesday) to accuse its own native born-and-bred Muslim citizens of plotting a mass terrorist attack.<br /><br />The Muslims’ face-saving, despairing exercise, launched across 1,000 UK mosques by the umbrella organisation the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), is expected urgently to reach two million faithful.<br /><br />But it is seen by many as a necessary but ultimately ineffective attempt to re-build the British Muslim’s tarnished brand identity.<br /><br />Significantly, on Wednesday, British prime minister Tony Blair told parliament he welcomed the MCB’s initiative.<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">Tuesday’s arrests, after raids across London and suburban south-east English towns such as Luton, have set off a wave of revulsion against the British Muslim community and South Asians in general.<br /><br />Some British Pakistanis and Indians said they feared the mass fall-out of a mass "demonisation" of "all brown people from the Indian sub-continent".<br /><br />Indian professionals said the fall-out of the resulting suspicion would undoubtedly affect all South Asian immigrants because ordinary Britons are unable to distinguish between Indians and Pakistanis.<br /><br />Social commentators admitted Asian applicants may subsequently find it harder to get jobs in key British industries, including the civil service, transport, banks, financial services, catering and hospitals.<br /><br />In Luton’s Bury Park area, home to a huge Pakistani community, which has already been subjected to an unprecedented large police raid, there was fear and hysteria. Yasin Rehman, information officer of the Luton Council of Mosques, said the Islamist hardliners had been trying to recruit young Pakistanis for many years.<br /><br />Politicians, press and public acknowledge the mutual suspicion is "incendiary" for race relations. <br /><br />Police continue to question the eight British born-and-bred Pakistanis, who’re alleged to have been planning an ammonium nitrate bomb attack, capable of killing at least 1000 civilians. The alleged attack was said to be five times the force of the Bali bombs, which killed 200 people.<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal">The men are reported to have travelled to Pakistan several times. Some of them are said to have trained at al-Qaeda’s training camps near Peshawar.<br /><br />Britain has Europe’s second largest Muslim population after France.<br /><br />The MCB, which includes some of Britain’s most recognisable Muslim faces, begged mosques to instantly and instinctively report anti-social activity, any suspicious people and events. The MCB’s Iqbal Sacranie said the appeal, which controversially appears to nail Muslims to the terrorist threat, asked Imams to be alert to possible terrorist activity.<br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>