Washington: The Islamic cleric behind plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York warned that retreating on the project would only strengthen the hand of Muslim extremists around the world.
Despite the warning, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf dodged the question when asked if he intended to keep the Islamic cultural centre at its current site, two blocks from where Al Qaida 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.
On Saturday's ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thousands marched in duelling protests over the row, which was stoked by a Florida pastor's threat to burn the Quran to mark the occasion.
Terry Jones used his threat, which triggered demonstrations across the Muslim world, as a bargaining chip to try and get the mosque moved and flew to New York to meet the imam, who has so far refused to meet him.
The imam told ABC in the interview yesterday that the "discourse has been, to a certain extent, hijacked by the radicals," and said this made his decision on the mosque "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," Abdul Rauof said.
Major concern
The mosque, to be built on the site of a derelict clothing store two blocks from Ground Zero — the name given to the site of the downed Twin Towers — was proposed by Abdul Rauof as a way of giving Islam a new face in the United States.
"My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America. This will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment," the imam told ABC.
"This will put our people — our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens — under attack in the Muslim world and we have expanded and given and fuelled terrorism."
Abdul Rauof said that if the Quran burning plan had been implemented, it would have been "a disaster" in the Muslim world.
"It would have strengthened the radicals," he said. "It would have enhanced the possibility of terrorist acts against America and American interests."
The imam described a "growing Islamophobia" in America, but said that contrary to the claims of radical Islam, Muslims in the United States were free to observe their religion, happy and thriving.
Abdul Rauof said the way America was treating its Muslims was being watched by over a billion Muslims worldwide and that the main ideological battleground today was not between Islam and the West.
"The battleground has been: moderates of all faith traditions in all the countries of the world against the radicals of all faith traditions in all parts of the world."
