WASHINGTON, July 22: Just hours before the latest attacks on London’s transport system, one of Britain’s most radical Muslim leaders predicted more violence against the country, The New York Times reported on Friday. “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,” Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed told the paper in a telephone interview from London late on Wednesday.

As one of Britain’s most outspoken imams, Omar Bakri, a Syrian who was granted asylum in Britain in 1986 and receives public assistance, is under consideration by British authorities for deportation.

In the interview with the New York Times, he blamed the July 7 bombings on the British government and people.

“They know that the prime minister (Tony Blair) has his hands full of the blood of Muslims in Palestine and in Iraq and in Afghanistan,” he said of young Muslims.

He said the West’s “war on terror” had incensed young people, causing some to want to strike out against Britain.

“We hear from many people who say they want to attack,” he said.—AFP