Tony Blair warned on Sunday that the Woolwich attack reveals a “problem within Islam,” stressing that that ideology behind the attack was “profound and dangerous” and “isn’t diminishing.”

The former UK prime minister wrote in an article published on the Daily Mail on Sunday that “the ideology” behind the brutal killing of veteran British soldier Lee Rigby by a radical Islamist in Woolwich, London last month must be discussed.

“There is a problem within Islam – from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be honest about it,” Blair wrote.

He urged people to be honest to admit the perils coming from extremist Islam to secure Britain.
While noting the existence of fanatics in all religions, he mentioned that the strain of radical Islam “is not the province of a few extremists.”

“It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies,” he wrote. “At the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists, but the world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit.”

But he said that there were some “good news,” when he admitted that there were Muslims, who identity the problem of extremist Islam, and “want to do something about it.”

The former prime minister said he started The Tony Blair Foundation “to educate children of different faiths across the world to learn about each other and live with each other.