Posted on 08/10/2006 7:53:58 PM PDT by Alouette
LONDON - News of a thwarted plot to down trans-Atlantic airliners sent a shiver of anxiety through Britain's Muslim community Thursday.
Muslim men accustomed to nervous looks from passers-by after last year's transit bombings noticed they were attracting them again. Some said they worried about a spike in hate crimes and job discrimination.
The suspects were believed to be mainly British Muslims, at least some of Pakistani ancestry. Three of the four suicide bombers who struck London's transit system were Britons of Pakistani origin, and many Muslims feared their community would be held responsible this time.
After an evening meeting of community leaders in east London, a spokesman for the Waltham Forest Islamic Association said one of those arrested was a woman in her 20s, who has a 6-month-old baby. Imtiaz Qadir said he knew other people who had been taken into custody in the raids.
"I know five of the men very well and they are really respectable young Muslim men," Qadir added. "I am totally shocked. I don't believe they've done anything to warrant this."
Monirul Sardar, 33, a Briton of Bangladeshi origin who runs an east London travel agency, said he'd noticed his bushy beard drawing stares after every major terror attack in recent years.
"It's started up again," he said. "People are afraid of me, mostly. ... If it's an old man, a lady in a hijab (head covering), they'll pick on them."
Harris Bokhari, a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said the group was asking mosques to urge worshippers to report any racial attacks.
But he said Muslims had demonstrated after the Sept. 11 attacks and the London bombings that they would not let such trouble stop them from participating in British life.
The Muslim community's relationship with police has been fraught in recent months, and some said they were waiting to see what evidence police would produce of the alleged bomb plot.
"They've arrested people, but let's see what they find from them," said Maj Ali, 27, who works at a northeast London restaurant near a home police were searching as part of their terror investigation.
"They didn't find nothing," he recalled of a June raid in which officers shot a man in the shoulder in his east London home during a search for the makings of a chemical bomb.
The man and his brother were arrested but later freed without charge. That raid and the fatal subway shooting last year of an innocent Brazilian man mistaken for a terrorist infuriated many Muslims.
"Was this (airline bomb plot) information really accurate or not from the police in terms of its intelligence?" Bokhari asked. "We need to be aware how these people were arrested."
When one home was raided Wednesday night, neighbors said unmarked police cars lined the busy street in Walthamstowe, east London. About 20 officers broke down the door of a three-story yellow and white building and searched its first-floor apartment with flashlights.
Neighbor Wendy Phillips, 31, said the men who lived in the home had paid for it in cash — unusual in expensive London — and just moved in last month. A white and red "SOLD" sign still stood in front.
"It's scary when it's on your doorstep," Phillips said. "You start wondering who you're living next door to."
Amar Singh, 17, stood on the corner across the street from the house talking animatedly with friends about the alleged plot.
"I'm shocked," Singh said. "This is usually a quiet area."
___
Associated Press Writer Katie Fretland contributed to this story.
We would have to amend the United States Constitution first. As for the Brits, I don't know what their laws are on religious matters.
Backlash is long ove rdo here in the US ..ALL MOSLEM IMMIGRATION MUST BE STOPPED. That message MUST be forced on out do nothing PC politicians. I CAN NOT believe that we still allow people from the Islamic countries here in the US after 9/11 .Are we THAT insane ? This has to be our big issue .
Islam is more a political movement then a religion. We should shut them down and deport ALL Moslems who are not citizens. STOP ALL ISLAMIC IMMIGRATION NOW !
islam and the American culture do not mix. They have no intention of becoming Americans , they want to take the damn country from us .
Refuse to do business with the bastards.
How do you prove it? It's like saying Presbyterians blew up the Lincoln Tunnel. How do you round 'em up and kill 'em?
Once again they whine and moan about being picked on. I am so sick of this crap. I wish I could put here what I am thinking should be done with them.
Who is "we?"
The US, the West, me, anyone who wants this to end.
They've been killing people and blowing up things for hundreds of years. The civilized folks just sit back and say, "It won't happen again."
Round them up and ship them home. Once they are all home, nuke them until their country is a sea of glass.
SCREW ISLAM! MOHAMMED WAS A HAM EATING DONKEY PUNCHER WHO LIKED TO BUGGER LITTLE BOYS AND BLOW CAMELS.
DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT, B*TCH?
If they blow up a mall here in the USA.........folks will see a backlash.
Come on kids, what do you think is going on in your mosques? Who is teaching the hate and why are you allowing it to continue?
Those were his good points.
And Great Britain has the worst of the worst. For decades, they have let islamic clerics and extremists so vile and violent, they are kicked out of countries like Syria and Egpyt for causing so much trouble, immigrate there all in the name of "human rights" and being labeled "politcal refugees". Not only did they let them and their baby factory wives in, they provide them with free housing, endless welfare, and let them setup islamic schools and mosques preaching hate and death to all non-muslims all day and all night.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that Britian is seeing so many attempted attacks right in their backyards.
When in fact they are not. Muslim nut cases kill and maim and the only reponse from the so called mainstream "moderate muslims" is don't pick on me.
Bullshit.
Because they're comfortable with their so-called "religion of peace".
I know who your talking about. That male Christiane Amonpour wannabe from sky news with the glasses and english accent that fox news has been having give reports from Lebannon.
And I'm sure by British press standards, he's considered non-liberal.
I think they used the same headline after the 7/7 plot to blow up trains in London.
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