WE have no doubt that Worcestershire's Jacqui Smith expected her new role as Britain's first female Home Secretary to be challenging.

It is doubtful, however, that the Redditch MP expected it to be this challenging this early.

But she finds herself directing the country's response to a new wave of terrorism just days after starting her new job.

The foiled car bombings in London were frightening enough. But the attack on Glasgow airport brought home to all of us that it is Britain as a whole that is a terrorist target, not just the capital city.

There are two opposing realities that all members of our communities have to accept. Firstly, that the vast majority of Muslims in this country are decent, law-abiding people. Secondly, that every terrorist outrage in the West in recent years has been the work of Muslims.

These realities put all of us in difficult positions.

Many non-Muslims in this country view Muslims with suspicion. It is the same suspicion with which many viewed the Irish in the Seventies.

Moderate Muslims have a massive role to play in helping to ease this climate of fear - because the fanatics within their midst stand for everything they are against.

The terrorists do not want a multi-cultural Britain. They want to impose their twisted view of Islam on everyone else.

It is up to all of us - of all creeds and colours - to take a stand against the evil they represent.