PROPAGANDA DVDs left at two mosques in Dewsbury contain material which is "distasteful and offensive", a senior police officer said today.

A local resident handed in copies of the recordings, which were left at the entrances to two mosques in the Savile Town area of Dewsbury, not far from where July 7 London bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan lived.

Kirklees Divisional Commander Chief Supt Barry South said the fact the DVDs were handed in showed the level of co-operation police had from the local community.

Mr South said: "What this issue shows us is that people locally have been increasingly vigilant which is what we have asked them to be.

"When they have discovered something that they feel may have an impact on their community they have had the confidence to come forward to us and make us aware so that we can look into the matter.

"In the main the content can be described as distasteful and offensive but we believe that it is material that can be downloaded on the internet and has been used on national media networks already."

The officer said police had six or seven copies of the DVD .

He thanked the community for handing in the recordings and urged anyone with any other copies in circulation to hand them in.

"We do need to know who has done this, why, and what their overall purpose has been," Mr South said.

Mr South said the two mosques in South Street were totally unaware the DVDs had been left.

He said they were placed at entrances and exits, not in the mosques themselves.

Local resident Safiq Patel alerted police to the tapes.

"People picked them up because they were labelled Eid prayers," Mr Patel said.

"When people actually played these videos back they realised that they were jihad videos and so they took the videos and gave them to the local police as evidence."

Asked what was on the videos he said he had not seen them himself.

But he added: "As far as we know the videos were a portrayal of violence - a portrayal of Muslims being victims of violence.

"It was an attempt to portray Muslims as victims and to perhaps try and evoke local sympathy, local pressure into some sort of backlash towards the perpetrators which I think the videos portray as British and American politicians - European democracies as the enemies.

"I believe they were aimed at stirring up racial tension - stirring up concern in the community."

"I think the broadest aim may have been recruiting terrorists."

Mr Patel went on: "It's important to note that these videos were not handed out by anybody, they were not endorsed by the mosque.

"They were left in the reception area by unknown people.

"There's a lot of people round here who want peace, who have children, grandchildren, who have worked very hard to establish the Mosques, the houses, the communities that we have.

"They do not want that blown to pieces by anybody - by intruders, by outsiders and by al Qaida for that matter."

Edgware Road Tube bomber Khan, 30, who killed six people, lived with his wife and their young daughter in Dewsbury.

Khan made a video suicide message in which he said he was inspired by al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and the reputed leader of the terror group in Iraq, Abu-Musab al Zarqawi.