Wednesday, July 5 2006 11:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: As Britain braces itself for the first anniversary of the July 7 bombings, the Labour government's relations with Muslims continue to be fraught with distrust with Prime Minister Tony Blair urging them to do more to combat extremism within the community.

In several respects, July 7 meant for Britain what Sep 11 was for the United States.

The event led to a rash of new laws to curb extremist activities, and also sparked some well-meaning efforts to redress grievances of the large Muslim minority. But for the average Muslim, the event accentuated the deep sense of suspicion in community relations.

On a day when newspapers led with news of the death of the first British Muslim soldier who had been deployed in Afghanistan, Blair told MPs Tuesday that it was up to moderate Muslims to root out extremism from within the community.

He disagreed with Labour MP Sadiq Khan that the government had done little to win the hearts and minds of Muslims since the July 7 bombings.

Pakistani-born Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, 24, died along with his comrade Corporal Peter Thorpe in a Taliban attack on their base in the volatile Helmand province on Saturday.

According to Blair, moderate Muslims should stand up to extremism and tell those with 'grievances' against Western countries that they were wrong. The government, he said, cannot alone root out extremism in Muslim communities and defeat the terrorism it creates.

Blair said, "If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West. In the end, the government itself cannot go and root out the extremism in these communities.

"I am probably not the person to go into the Muslim community. It's better that we mobilise the Islamic community itself to do this. We can only defeat it if we have people in the community who are going to stand up and not merely say 'you are wrong to kill people through terrorism, you're wrong in your view of the West, the whole sense of grievance, the ideology is wrong, is profoundly wrong'," he said.

Amidst plans to solemnly commemorate the day of London bombings, officials announced that at least four major attacks in Britain planned since July 7 had been foiled by security forces.

There are also reports of extremist elements seeking to infiltrate British intelligence agencies and vice versa.

The recent anti-terror raid on a Muslim family's house in east London based on faulty intelligence has further incensed the Muslim community that sees itself as the target of growing Islamophobia in Britain.

Muslim leaders believe that Blair and his government have failed to engage with young Muslims, many of whom are seen to be radicalised by Britain's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Inayat Bunglawala, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain, said the involvement was a 'key contributory factor in the radicalisation' of some young Muslims.

He told the BBC, "That said, it is true that extremists often paint a very unfair picture of the West. We all benefit from freedoms and opportunities here that are not exactly plentiful in many Muslim countries."

Meanwhile, a Populus poll for The Times newspaper and ITV News suggests that 13 percent of British Muslims believe the July 7 bombers should be regarded as martyrs, with the other 87 percent disagreeing.