In wake of botched terror plot, Scottish Muslims fear retaliation

In the row of shops, a Pakistani immigrant owns the only one that was targeted. Shafiq Ahmed says vandals rammed a car into his "One Stop Shop" and set it on fire — an assault disturbingly reminiscent of the terror attack just days earlier on the airport of this gritty but until now racially well-integrated Scottish city.

Police say there has been a backlash against Glasgow's Muslims in the wake of the attempted airport bombing, with at least 24 attacks, ranging from graffiti on a mosque to firebombings of businesses.

Soaping off soot with his family in his charred convenience store, Ahmed is hoping that the attack on his family business wasn't racially motivated. After 30 peaceful years in Scotland, the idea that some may no longer welcome him and his Scottish-born children is simply too uncomfortable.

"I haven't got words to describe it. I'm hoping it's not retaliation," Ahmed said Sunday, in a thick Glasgow accent. "It's a shame to think you can't work with people and enjoy the company of people and instead have to worry."

British police are still threading together the terror plot investigation, reaching out to India, Australia, Jordan, Iraq and to communities here in Scotland where Muslims and non-Muslims have long lived in peace together — and where the majority are determined to keep it that way.

Unlike in Muslim enclaves in northern England, Asian Muslims in Glasgow do not live in complete isolation. White customers are common in the curry restaurants and ethnic grocery stores. Glaswegians wearing the colors of the local soccer team — Glasgow Rangers — share the sidewalks with Muslim community elders clad in long tunics and matching baggy trousers traditionally worn in Pakistan.

In the former industrial towns of northern England where much of Britain's Asian diaspora is settled, the far right British National Party with its fiercely anti-Muslim rhetoric has made inroads. But in Glasgow — Scotland's most populous Muslim city — the BNP has hardly any presence despite repeated efforts to foment racial division.

Problems of unemployment, poverty, and alcohol and drug abuse are shared by the community, not divided along racial lines.

Two Muslims allegedly rammed a Jeep Cherokee packed with gas cylinders and gasoline into the terminal building of Glasgow's airport on June 30. Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq, was charged on Friday. Kafeel Ahmed, from Bangalore, India, was believed to be driving the jeep. Hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns, he has not been charged. Six others remain held in custody over that plot and a failed car bomb attack 24 hours earlier in London's theater district.

In Glasgow, some Muslims fear that they will now face the same unwelcome scrutiny, even alienation and violence, that others across the border in England have complained of since four British-born Muslims blew themselves up on trains and a bus in London on July 7, 2005, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700.

Senior officials have since urged Muslims to better integrate. Jack Straw, the justice secretary and lord chancellor in the new government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, spoke out in October against the head-to-toe black veils worn by some Muslim women.

"After 7/7 it was not that bad for Muslims here," said Imran Ali, a 22-year-old in Pollokshields, the most populous Muslim district of Glasgow. "It's going to be worse now."

John Neilson, one of Glasgow's most senior police officers, told The Associated Press that they have made 25 arrests in the 24 attacks they suspect were revenge for the airport assault. But he also pointed out that for every attack, there were hundreds more expressions of support for Scotland's 60,000 Muslims.

"We showed resilience that some other nations don't have the capacity to show," Neilson said.

Ahmed's store is on a row of shops that includes a Chinese take-out restaurant, a betting shop, a kebab restaurant, a bank, a post office and a pub, The Princess. Plywood boards now cover part of the front of his store, that still gives off a strong burnt smell.

Robert Wishart, who lives opposite, said he was woken by a loud bang in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and saw from his bedroom window that a silver car had smashed into the shop front. It was set on fire five minutes later by a man who arrived in another car with an accomplice. They then sped off. Police say they are investigating.

"He's always been a friendly guy," Wishart said of Ahmed. "We all get on."

Like in Muslim communities across the length of Britain, there is seething resentment in Glasgow at the British government's foreign policy. The Iraq war, the alliance with the United States and a perception of one-sidedness in the Israel-Palestine conflict all fuel hostility. But terrorism in the name of Islam is abhorred in equal measure.

Unlike in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States or the 2005 bombings in London, where some young British Muslims saluted the terrorists, the latest terror plot drew nothing but condemnation here.

"We are not going to tolerate any racists or terrorists coming in and dividing us," said 23-year-old youth worker Javed Aslam.

Pointing to other young Muslims gathered around him, Aslam added: "If one of these guys supported any terrorism, we would all let them him know that we were ashamed."

Several hundred people — from Muslims to Quakers, teenagers to trade unionists — rallied in central Glasgow's George Square on Saturday to denounce the attacks. Blue and white Scottish flags fluttered symbolically alongside banners that declared "Terrorism has no Religion".

"We want to send the message that this country is united," said organizer Osama Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain. "It won't be shaken by terrorism."

International Herald Tribune