Los Angeles officials on Friday defended a plan to detail the city's Muslim community, saying it is an effort to increase understanding and knowledge and not a move to profile people based on race or religion.

"I would urge people to step back and not get involved in the rhetoric," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said.

"We are doing a good-faith effort in a transparent way to increase understanding. We are meeting with various groups and will continue to have a dialogue.

"This is about community engagement. We got hung up with one word, `mapping,' that conjures up images of racial or religious profiling. I want us to move forward, and this is about not using the wrong words or wrong symbols."

The reaction came after the Los Angeles Police Department revealed a plan to create a map detailing Muslim communities in the city, an effort described as a step toward thwarting radicalization.

But "mapping" communities for potential Muslim terrorists is not an effective tool to help find them because there are no Muslim enclaves or neighborhoods in the United States, said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. [Link]