Muslim council condemns 'evil deeds' in Britain

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LONDON -- Muslim leaders in Britain yesterday were swift to condemn a series of deadly bomb blasts in London and they appealed to Britons not to single out their community for reprisals.

The leaders also made an unprecedented appeal to the estimated 1.7 million Muslims living in Britain to tip off the police about who had carried out the bombings.

"These evil deeds makes victims of us all," the Muslim Council of Britain said.

"The evil people who planned and carried out these series of explosions in London want to demoralize us as a nation and divide us as a people.

"All of us must unite in helping the police to capture these murderers."

That same appeal was made by the leadership of Europe's largest mosque and cultural center.

"We call on the Muslim community to be fully cooperative in this situation, so we may all live in peace and harmony and continue to make London the vibrant, tolerant and peaceful city it is," concluded a statement from the London Central Mosque, whose golden dome rises above one of London's major landmarks, Regent's Park.

Other Muslim groups, dismissed by the establishment Islamic representatives as a hard-line fringe, during recent years have expressed public support for al Qaeda, but have avoided giving open backing to terrorist attacks against Britain itself.

One such radical, the Egyptian-born cleric Abu Hamza, influenced a number of youths who later fought in Afghanistan and joined terror cells.

He was forced out of his Finsbury Park mosque some two years ago, and is currently under arrest in Britain while also facing deportation to the United States, which accuses him of terrorist activities.