LONDON, 23 July 2005 — Muslims gathered for afternoon prayers yesterday with renewed fears of a backlash against Britain’s Islamic community after a string of new terror attacks.

Amid the anxiety, a bomb threat forced the evacuation of one of the city’s largest mosques, and police investigated an apparent attempt to set fire to the home of one of the suspected suicide bombers in the first attacks on July 7.

When undercover officers on the London Underground yesterday shot and killed a man who was described by witnesses as South Asian, the news swept through Britain’s Muslim community of 1.6 million. The death came on the heels of a series of failed bombings Thursday, in which four men placed backpacks of explosives on three trains and a bus.

“I have just had one phone call saying ‘What if I was carrying a rucksack?” said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, following the shooting. “We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot-to-kill policy.”

Police said officers were operating on a “shoot-to-stop” policy when facing an imminent life threat.

London Mayor Ken Livingston, however, explained: “If you are dealing with someone who might be a suicide bomber, if they remain conscious, they could trigger plastic explosives or whatever device is on them. Therefore overwhelmingly, in these circumstances, it is going to be a shoot-to-kill policy.”

At the London Central Mosque, two police officers stood guard as they have every day since the July 7 attacks. Mosque manager Ali Khan said he had seen no need to increase the precautions after the Thursday attempts, largely because he had been reassured by words like Blair’s.

He condemned the attacks, and said if those responsible turned up at his mosque seeking refuge they would be turned over to police.

On Monday, the British Muslim Forum — with the approval of more than 500 British Muslim clerics, scholars and imams — issued a fatwa declaring that “suicide bombings, which killed and injured innocent people in London, are ‘haram’ — vehemently prohibited in Islam, and those who committed these barbaric acts in London are criminals not martyrs.”

Many of the hundreds praying yesterday at the London Central Mosque appeared apprehensive. “This was a peaceful place. Muslims from all over the world could come because they knew they would be safe. They love the way they are treated here,” said Abdullah Alesayi, 40, who said he has been coming to London every summer on vacation since 1971 from Saudi Arabia. “I hope this country continues this way. It is my second home.”

Three of the suspects in the July 7 attacks have roots in Leeds, 298 km north of London, where Muslims are getting increasingly on edge.

“This is not Islam,” said Qari Asim, imam of the Makkah Mosque in Leeds. During Friday prayers, he condemned “cowardly” suicide bombers and said the attacks on London were un-Islamic. “It’s one of the things that has sparked off a lot of anger in the youth. People are angry at the people who did it. People were living peacefully, and now it’s just a tension,” he said.

He also criticized the killing of the suspect in Stockwell station. “I think it was an act of unnecessary force used. I mean, they didn’t need to shoot him five times. They could have shot him once or twice, maybe in the leg, so that he couldn’t get away. There’s another worry now, a big one that I think Muslims fear, that after 7/7, unnecessary force would be used to curb radicalism which would, breed more radicals,” he said.