Yesterday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Muslim leaders to discuss several important issues after the terrorist attacks of 7/7.

According to press resports,"Muslim community leaders had agreed to deal "head-on" with extremism based on a perversion of Islam that can lead to terrorism. According to Blair, "[T]here would be a network of people prepared to take on arguments within the Muslim community and confront 'this evil ideology and defeat it by the force of reason.'" In Blair's words:

The meeting revolved around a very strong desire of people from right across the Muslim community in our country to be united, not just in a condemnation of the terrible terrorist attacks here in London but also to confront and deal with head-on the extremism that is based on a perversion of the true faith of Islam but nonetheless is real within parts of our community here in this country.

There was a strong desire from everybody there to make sure we establish the right mechanisms for people to be able to go into the community and confront this.

They will be people who are going to be supported by the rest of us but from the community, able to talk to the Muslim community and confront this evil ideology, take it on and defeat it by the force of reason.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy, said that he would be considering "a new task force to tackle the issue...." Also in attendance were Michael Howard and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.