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.
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.
The government is drafting a range of tough new laws to crack down on Islamic extremism and those who advocate terrorism, including setting up special intelligence units to monitor Muslims nationwide.
Prime Minister Tony Blair called Tuesday on Britain's Muslim community to confront the "evil ideology" behind terrorism following a meeting with leaders from Islamic groups.
In another incident Friday, armed police briefly threw a cordon around a mosque in east London, while the home of a Muslim convert identified as one of the suspected July 7 suicide bombers was sealed off after a suspected arson attack.
Analysts said the officers involved in the Stockwell shooting did not appear to be operating according to normal procedures.
"These guys may have been some sort of plainclothes special forces," said terrorism expert Professor Michael Clarke.
"To have bullets pumped into him like this suggests quite a lot about him and what the authorities, whoever they are, assumed about him."
Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University said the shooting had parallels with the "very strong" methods used by Israeli security forces and US troops in Iraq.
"The kind of tactics the Met (Metropolitan police) appear to have used this morning are very similar to the very tough tactics that the Israelis use against suspected suicide bombers," he said.
How about a little less questions and a lot more shut the hell up - Brian Griffin
