Senior Muslims warned the government that it needs to revise British foreign policy if it wants to put an end to terrorist violence.

Dr Azzam Tamimi from the Muslim Association of Britain said that the country is in real danger, insisting that this will continue so long as British forces remained in Iraq. He described the July 7 bombings and the attempted attacks in the capital on Thursday as “horrifying,” but he stressed that it is not enough simply to unite in condemnation.

“The latest developments show that this is a very big thing. It’s not just a few individuals from Leeds,” he said. “It’s time that everybody got serious and engaged in an attempt to prevent it. Part of that would be to understand what’s going on.”

He noted: “7/7, 21/7, and God knows what will happen afterwards. Our lives are in real danger and, it would seem, so long as we are in Iraq and so long as we are contributing to injustices around the world, we will continue to be in real danger. “Tony Blair has to come out of his state of denial and listen to what the experts are saying – our involvement in Iraq is stupid.”

Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjareh also urged the government to take responsibility for a “political environment” for terrorist attacks.

Morning Star, 23 July 2005