LONDON: Affirming Britain's determination to crack down on extremists, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday that anti-terror laws would be tightened and steps taken to speed up the deportation of radical Imams to prevent them from spreading the "evil and extreme ideology" based on a "perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of Islam."

Mr. Blair told a hushed House of Commons that police and security services had done a "magnificent work" in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 persons.

Not an isolated criminal

"This is not an isolated criminal that we are dealing with. It is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam," he said.

"We will seek to debate the right way forward in combating this evil within the Muslim community with Muslim leaders and it is our intention to begin this process immediately,"' he added. Mr. Blair said that in the next 14 days proposals would be published to tighten the anti-terror laws — including the controversial control orders — which scraped its way into the statute book at the end of the last Parliament session. The focus would be on measures to combat the incitement and instigation of terrorism.

"The Government will also look urgently at how to strengthen the process for deporting the hard-line priests who incite hatred. This will involve opening up dialogue with Muslim leaders both at home and abroad to mobilise the moderate and true voice of Islam. I think we all know that security measures alone are not going to deal with this," he said.

Speaking at the Prime Minister's Questions, Mr. Blair called for calm after the shock of finding that the bombings had been carried out by young British men of Pakistani origin.

He stressed that the terrorists represented an extreme minority of the Muslim community, and condemned the opportunistic race attacks that have come in their wake.

"There will be a sense of profound shock and anxiety in the country at what has happened and also a need and a willingness to act," Mr. Blair told an unusually sombre House.

Shell-shocked communities

His words were particularly aimed at the shell-shocked suburban communities around Leeds, which were today waking up to the realisation that the four suicide bombers had grown up among their red-brick terraces.

Mr. Blair said: "This is a small group of extremists. It is not one that can be ignored because of the danger, but neither should it define Muslims in Britain who are overwhelmingly law-abiding, decent members of our society and we condemn attacks against them."

The police revealed last night that the London bombs were the handiwork of four young British men of Pakistani origin, three of who lived in Leeds.

There are fears that members of a terrorist cell linked to the city are planning further strikes. The mastermind behind the attacks and the bomb-maker are both still thought to be at large. — PTI

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