within weeks all of those held under the Terrorism Act were being released without charge and were being handed over to the Home Office for deportation.

Leaving aside the fact that apparently nothing had been found that was adjudged to be prejudicial to the safety of the state, most of the young men were in the last stages of degree courses which would have fitted them for productive professional lives either in Britain or in their country of origin, Pakistan.

The suspicious immediately dubbed the latest shenanigans as another example of the state whipping up terror hysteria for ulterior motives while others marked it down as another example of police over-reaction and the more knowing suspected that the police had actually managed to forestall a serious outrage and were simply not able to prove that it was about to be launched.

Several problems arise: no one is able to prove that any particular scenario is correct in the public domain and so key questions remain unanswered on either side. That, in turn, leads to further alienation of the Muslim community within British society and further distrust by the majority Anglo-Saxon elements of society. There is also further distrust of the police and their motives by the Muslims and also in society at large; though the majority of people may be prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

All of these issues remain unresolved as the putative attack fades from the headlines until the next round of headline-grabbing raids. Meanwhile the likelihood that Islamic activists will feel compelled to repeat the exercise is immeasurably increased.

And whatever scenario proves to be correct in the final analysis the terrorists have achieved the major objective of the creation of a piece of theatre achieving the same long-term aims as with their first spectacular on 9/11: keeping the Islamic issue front and centre in world politics and maintaining the myth that there is a perpetual holy war in progress between the West and Islam. That myth feeds right down to local communities setting Muslim against Christian and creating fissures in societies across the world.
One of the key academics trying to bridge these gaps and find a rational, non-military way forward to rid the world of the blight of Islamic terror is Professor Steve Tsang of the Pluscarden programme at St Antony's College, Oxford, who is editor of the forthcoming 'Combating Transnational Terrorism: Searching for a new Paradigm' to be published by Praeger Security International.

Prof Tsang said in an interview with Asian Affairs that steps must be taken to assure the public that the police operations, such as the recent one in the northwest, had been justified and proportionate. 'We can't expect the police to release all the information to the public but we need to reassure cynical people.'

As it is, the public was not in possession of sufficient information to know whether the subsequent deportation of those involved was justified and a way must be found — perhaps through a judge in camera — to make a ruling. Certainly an executive order on the deportations was not the way to proceed. 'We have got to be whiter than white,' said Prof Tsang. 'We must uphold the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty,' he said. 'We can't compromise.'

But while the professor is keen to ensure that the 'downstream' end of the terrorism story is handled to the best advantage of society, his primary concern is with alleviating the potential threat at its root by ensuring that young Muslims are not exposed to corrosively incorrect interpretations of the Koran in the first place.

In Britain, at any rate, his ambition is that this should be achieved by arriving at a rational approach to the holy book by the publication of an annotated version of the text giving the source of every key element with its timeframe so that they can be judged against the era in which they were drafted and how they should be applied in the context of the 21st century.
'We need an international effort by scholars and religious leaders of different persuasions to come together. They should put down the historical context so that people can see the different interpretations, for example on jihad, so that they can make up their minds on the meaning in the context of the 21st century and the country in which they live,' he said. People would be able to say 'you don't have to believe me but this is the credible international view.'
The professor stresses that he is not advocating an 'authorised' Koran that would be imposed on the religion in the United Kingdom, or elsewhere, even if that were possible, but he does promote the idea of minimum standards, an agreed basis on which the religion could function. He says that against the background that, at the moment, any Muslim is free to enter the United Kingdom and preach at a British mosque without any recognised qualification to do so. That contrasts with the Church of England where religious qualifications and the oversight of senior clergy are de rigueur for any Christian priest.

Equally important — if one believes that since the source of terrorism is the Islamic community then any solution must come from there — is the treatment of Britain's Muslim community by officialdom and, especially, the law enforcement authorities. In the latter case the local policeman on the beat is all important. It is key that he treats Muslims with respect and shows understanding of their community and its problems.

As Professor Tsang writes in an advance-release chapter of his work: 'How Western governments deal with Muslim communities, both in their own countries and in Islamic countries, has great implications for the ideological battles being fought within Islamic communities.

'The U.S.A, for example, gave up the moral high ground by not respecting the human rights of Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay and by allowing the torture and humiliation of Muslims in Abu Ghraib.

'All instances of abuse of the rights of Muslims by Western governments or militaries powerfully reinforce the message extremists associated with al-Qaeda seek to spread among Muslims everywhere, and weaken the voice of Muslims appealing for reason, conciliation and peaceful co-existence,' he writes.

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