SEPTEMBER 11 - ONE YEAR ON: SWINDON is home to a community of around 1,000 Muslims.

Days after the September 11 attack a 19 year-old British Muslim woman was beaten with a baseball bat in the town centre.

Police feared the attack was racially motivated and possibly a misguided attempt at revenge.

Muslim Leader Khan Nawaz, 72, helped defuse the situation by appealing for calm and immediately condemning the actions of Osama Bin Laden and his followers.

A year on, he says Swindon has a harmonious multi-cultural community.

He stands by his condemnation of Bin Laden but says war with Iraq is not the way to beat terrorism.

He said: "If one person does something a whole community or a whole nation can get the blame.

"There are extreme minorities in all communities, but that doesn't mean the majority of people agree with them.

"There is the National Front in this country but they are less than one per cent of the population."

"Many American Muslims died who were working the World Trade Center."

He said Islamic law very clearly condemns the actions of Osama Bin Laden's followers. "Life is sacred it is given to us on trust by God so we must look after are own lives and those of other people."

Usman Latif, 24, of Wootton Basset, was actually in Pakistan on September 11, where there was an ambiguous response to the terrorist attack.

He said: "There were mixed emotions in the people around me. Not many people are sympathetic to America in that part of the world because it is seen as a big boss that pushes other countries around. So there was some jubilation but lots of other people thought it was terrible.

"It was a great loss if any of my family or friends had been there of course I would be suffering.

"It was extremists behind the attack there is a huge difference between ordinary Muslims and those people."