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Muslims fear police have 'shoot to kill' policy after bomb attacks
51 minutes ago
LONDON (AFP) - British Muslims said they feared police were operating under a "shoot to kill" policy after a man was gunned down at an Underground train station following a new wave of bomb attacks.
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Muslims said the shooting deepened their anxiety about a violent backlash against their community in the wake of two sets of bomb attacks blamed on Islamist militants, including one that killed 56 people on July 7.
The Muslim Council of Britain demanded police explain why an Asian-looking man, reported as a "suspected suicide bomber" by Sky News, was shot dead at Stockwell station in south London on Friday.
Police have confirmed that officers pursued and shot a man who was pronounced dead at the scene, but have offered no explanation for the shooting.
The incident came a day after another apparent wave of would-be suicide bombers hit London's mass transport system, two weeks after four suspected Islamist suicide bombers on trains and a bus killed 56 people.
No one was injured in Thursday's attacks after the bombs apparently failed to go off. A website statement purportedly from the Al-Qaeda terror network claimed responsibility for the attacks Friday but this has not been confirmed.
A Muslim Council spokesman said Muslims were "jumpy and nervous" and feared reprisal attacks.
"I have just had one phone call saying 'What if I was carrying a rucksack?'," said Inayat Bunglawala, referring to the rucksack bombs used in the London attacks.
"It's vital the police give a statement about what occurred (at Stockwell) and explain why the man was shot dead," Bunglawala said.
"We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot-to-kill policy."
Witnesses told Sky News that police shot the man five times at close range after shouting at him to stop. Others described seeing many heavily armed plainclothes officers in unmarked cars at the scene.
"There may well be reasons why the police felt it necessary to unload five shots into the man and shoot him dead, but they need to make those reasons clear," Bunglawala said.
The shooting is the latest in a series of incidents which have threatened to create a rift between Britain's large Muslim community and the rest of the population in the wake of the terrorist attacks here this month.
Some radical British Muslim preachers have blamed the government's Middle East policy and the British-backed invasion of
Iraq for the outrages, although the vast majority of British Muslims have condemned the bombings.
"Unless British foreign policy is changed and they withdraw forces from Iraq, I'm afraid there's going to be a lot of attacks, just the way it happened in Madrid and the way it happened in London," radical British Muslim preacher Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed told the New York Times this week...
Do ya think they are as concerned about a "BOMB to KILL" policy?"We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot-to-kill policy."
Mr. P said:Do ya think they are as concerned about a "BOMB to KILL" policy?
Just shoot em...Then wrap em in bacon..dilloduck said:I bet the bobbies are gonna have to come up with some kind of bacon gun to apprehend muslims.
This is
LONDON
22/07/05 - News section
Change foreign policy - top Muslims
Senior Muslims have warned the Government that it needed to revise British foreign policy if it wants to put an end to the violence.
Dr Azzam Tamimi, from the Muslim Association of Britain, said the country was in real danger and that this would continue so long as British forces remained in Iraq.
He described the July 7 bombings and the attempted attacks in London on Thursday as "horrifying" but said it was not enough to simply unite in condemnation of the bombers.
Dr Tamimi, speaking after a Sky News debate in Birmingham, said: "The latest developments very clearly show this is a very big thing. It's not just a few individuals from Leeds. I think it's time everybody got serious and engaged in an attempt to prevent it. Part of that would be to understand what's going on.
"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 have been saying, that our involvement in Iraq is stupid." His comments were echoed by the marketing manager for The Muslim Weekly newspaper.
Shahid Butt said he believed the threat to Britain would reduce if it pulled its troops out of Iraq. He said: "At the end of the day, these things [violent incidents] are going to happen if current British foreign policy continues. There's a lot of rage, there's a lot of anger in the Muslim community.
"We have got to get out of Iraq, it is the crux of the matter. I believe if Tony Blair and George Bush left Iraq and stopped propping up dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world, the threat rate to Britain would come down to nearly zero."
Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, also called on the Government to take responsibility for creating the "political environment" in which these attacks have happened.
He said: "Now we know this wasn't a one-off, we need to look at ways of addressing the underlying factors that created it. I feel it's urgent to start addressing these before there is further loss of life."
Kathianne said:The Muslim Council of Britain demanded police explain why an Asian-looking man, reported as a "suspected suicide bomber" by Sky News, was shot dead at Stockwell station in south London on Friday.
