PRIME Minister Tony Blair has condemned claims made by one of the four suicide bombers who struck on July 7.

He said it was "absurd" to suggest that the murder of innocent people in London could be justified by anger over the UK's involvement in military action in Iraq.

And he told MPs there was "no justification" for the kind of grievance displayed by July 7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan in a video recorded before his suicide attack, in which he claimed to be fighting on behalf of oppressed Muslims.

Mr Blair told a Commons select committee: "We have got to challenge this sense of grievance.

"When I saw the video of one of the suicide bombers from July 7 talking about what had happened, I looked at it and said `This is someone brought up in this country who has all the freedoms of growing up in this country and a good standard of living because of growing up in this country'.

"One of the things we have got to challenge is this notion that he can stand up and say `This is a country that is oppressing people of my religion'. It's rubbish."

He added: "The idea that you can possibly justify killing innocent people on the London Underground or London buses by reference to what is happening in Iraq or Palestine is absurd."

Khan, 30, of Thornhill Lees, was reputed to be the ringleader of the terror gang, who also included Huddersfield's Jermaine Lindsay.

Mr Blair said he had "absolutely no doubt" that extremists would use the excuse of Western foreign policy on Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or Chechnya as a justification for their terrorist activities.

But he insisted that the effect of Britain's foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan was in fact to allow millions of people the right to vote.

He said: "Whether American is right or wrong, or Britain is right or wrong, about aspects of its foreign policy, it is not pursuing it because of the religion of the people involved."

Extremism within British ethnic minority communities would in the end be defeated by people from within the community standing up and arguing the case for democratic and peaceful means, he said.

There were plenty of very good role models within the UK's ethnic minorities who could be expected to do just that.