British Muslims' alienation deep
By Ken Dilanian KNIGHT RIDDER
LUTON, England - ... A poll in November showed that 80 percent of British Muslims equate the "war on terrorism" with a war on Islam.
"What happens now depends on how the British government responds," said Luton resident Sadaqat Hussein, 18.
"They need to stop blaming all Muslims for it. And they need to wake up and realize we are in a democracy, and we need to stop this illegal war in Iraq."
In interviews over the past week, young Muslim men repeatedly made clear that while they disagree with the bombers' methods, they are sympathetic to the presumed cause: a passionate opposition to Britain's role in what they see as deeply immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For many young British Muslims, there's little difference between the attacks on the World Trade Center and this year's U.S. invasion of Fallujah, which killed 1,500 Iraqis.
"George Galloway said it best: Tony Blair's got blood on his hands," said Razaran Khan, 18, referring to a left-wing member of Parliament who suggested that Britain's role in the Iraq war had provoked the London terrorist attack.
"He put Britain in the firing line."
Hussein, who said he wanted to be a police officer, and Razaran Khan, who wants to study medicine, don't come off as extremists.
Polite and well informed, they live and go to school in this faded former industrial center of 184,000 people, about 15 percent of whom are Muslims whose families hail largely from the Kashmir region of Pakistan.
The four London attackers took the train from Luton on the way to their target, 30 miles to the south.
Luton previously made news when three of its Muslim residents were reported killed in Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban.
Hussein and Razaran Khan look on such people as brainwashed.
They said they were shocked that men their age would mount a suicide attack.
They also said they enjoyed living in Britain and considered themselves British.
But, they said, they can't accept that the British government embarked on what they consider an illegal war in Iraq after millions marched in the streets of Europe to protest it.
They feel so strongly, in fact, that they said they'd find it acceptable for a British Muslim to go to Iraq and fight against the British soldiers stationed there.
Kamran Khan, the taxi driver, who was interviewed separately, said much the same thing.
For these young men, the brotherhood of Islam trumps national identity. ...
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Carl