Beheading rage spreads

The gory killing of a British soldier by two men who shouted Islamist-militant slogans, has shone a spotlight on Woolwich, the London district in which it happened, stirring racial tensions in one of the most ethnically diverse parts of Britain.

Tucked away in a bend of the River Thames, to the southeast of central London, Woolwich has changed as quickly as the British capital itself in the past 20 years as successive waves of immigrants, attracted by the area's cheaper housing, have made it their home.

"We have worshippers from Africa and Asia, Somalia and Nigeria . you name it," Saeed Omer, a Somali-born trustee of the local mosque, said.

Woolwich's mosque, a red-brick structure crowned by a golden dome on a busy road near the river, has found itself under uncomfortable scrutiny since the murder.

One of the two assailants was filmed professing Islamist ideology.

"How could this happen here?" a woman in her 30s shouted as she walked past the mosque. "How could Muslims cut the head off a British soldier in broad daylight?"

Jabbing her finger at the mosque, and at Omer, she added: "This place is part of it."

She then used an expletive to denounce Muslims and shouted a slogan in support of the right-wing English Defence League.

More than 100 of the league's activists converged on Woolwich on Wednesday night after the murder to protest against what they said was growing Islamisation.

Omer said he was "100%" sure the two suspects had not worshipped at his mosque and that they were not from the neighbourhood.

"This is what we're up against," he said of the woman's outburst.

"Islam teaches peace ... but all this is creating tension between communities. We saw the same after 7/7 and 9/11," he added, referring to Islamist attacks on London and New York in July 2005 and September 2001.

Omer said there had been problems with extremists at the mosque. In 2006, he said he and others had launched a court case against followers of radical cleric Omar Bakri, who is banned from Britain and has praised the 9/11 attack.

"They were coming here showing our children pictures of beheadings," he said. "We took out an injunction and banned them."

Bakri's banned group, al-Muhajiroun, was later led by Anjem Choudary, who said one of the attackers attended his meetings but he had not seen him for about two years.