Imam warns against retreat on Ground Zero mosque

The Islamic cleric behind plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York warned yesterday that retreating on the project would only strengthen the hand of the Muslim extremists.

But Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf did not commit to keeping the Islamic cultural centre at its current site, two blocks from where Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Centre.

“The decisions that I will make – that we will make – will be predicated on what is best for everybody,” he told ABC’s This Week programme.

Thousands marched through New York on Saturday’s ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, facing off in angry debate under a heavy police presence as they protested both for and against the project.

The row was enflamed in the run-up to sombre September 11 ceremonies in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania by threats from an evangelical pastor to burn hundreds of Korans unless the mosque was moved.

Terry Jones, the pastor of a tiny Florida church, later relented and promised not to proceed with the Koran-burning, but not before his incendiary threats had triggered violent demonstrations across the Muslim world.

Two people were shot and killed on Sunday by the Afghan army in the eastern district of Baraki Barak as a crowd of up to 300 protesters chanted anti-US slogans and tried to storm the governor’s office.

Pastor Jones flew to New York at the weekend to meet with Abdul Rauf, but the imam has so far snubbed him and vowed not to barter.

“How can you equate the burning of any person’s scripture with an attempt to build inter-faith dialogue?” Abdul Rauf told ABC. “This is a house with multi-faith partners, intended to work together towards building peace.”

The imam said the “discourse has been, to a certain extent, hijacked by the radicals,” making his decision “very difficult and very challenging.

“The radicals on both sides, the radicals in the United States and the radicals in the Muslim world, feed off each other. And to a certain extent, the attention that they’ve been able to get by the media has even aggravated the problem.”

The mosque, to be built on the site of a derelict clothing store, was proposed by Abdul Rauf as a way of giving Islam a new face in the United States and supporters see it as a place for reconciliation between faiths.

“My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America,” the imam told ABC. “This will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment.”

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is a big backer of the mosque, while President Barack Obama has been more circumspect, saying only that Muslims have the right to build it because America is a land of religious freedom.