“A year ago I was appointed by the Home Office to be the convenor of a working group on tackling extremism and radicalisation. In its final report, the group accepted that extremism was a reality in some sections of the Muslim community and that it must be confronted and defeated….

“That same group also made it clear that foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, could not be left unconsidered as a factor in the motivations of extremists. We believed it was a key contributory factor. Now it was the Government’s turn to go into denial about whether some of its actions might have contributed to undermining our national security and making the terrorist threat worse.”

Inayat Bunglawala in the Times, 12 August 2006