A MINORITY of school-age children in Waltham Forest see blowing people up as "quite cool" according to a Waltham Forest youth worker.

Hanif Qadir, of the Leyton-based Active Change Foundation, made the claim during a CNN documentary about London's terrorist threat.

The War Within by the network's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, looked at Islamist extremism in London and focused on Waltham Forest as the community was reeling after the arrests of 14 people in connection with the alleged airline plot last August.

Ms Amanpour showed Home Secretary John Reid's controversial visit to Leyton where Leytonstone resident Omar Brooks, aka Abu Izzadeen, heckled the cabinet member.

Mr Izzadeen is also shown voicing his extremist views at a Dublin University debate and Ilford's Anjem Choudary told the reporter that it is only a matter of time before Britain came under Sharia law.

But Ms Amanpour, who has covered wars and crises all over the world, was keen to show that British Muslims held a variety of views.

One youth she interviewed in Walthamstow market was unsure what Sharia law was at first, then laughed at the idea. "It's not the Taliban out here," he said.

Mr Qadir warned that vulnerable young people were being preyed on by extremists, a view the Guardian first published a year before the London bombs.

"There's a minority in the schools that actually believe that blowing up people is quite cool," he said.

He said young people felt they were being made scapegoats and were angered by British foreign policy in Muslim countries.

The documentary showed his efforts to try to break down barriers between alienated Muslim youth, their elders and the police.

Imam of Masjid-Al-Tawhid in Leyton High Road, Dr Osama Hassan, who memorised the Koran aged 11, was also featured.

"If you had the intention you could justify your actions from any text," he said.

Ms Amanpour told the Guardian that most reporting on the terrorist threat focused on what extremists, many of whom are self-appointed clerics with no religious training, were saying.

"I really wanted to know if there was another voice and what that other voice was saying. Ninety nine point nine per cent of the reporting I see is somewhat sensationalist," she said.

"I do think the wider audience simply doesn't know enough about the rich cultural make-up of the Muslim community and believes that right now Muslims are violent and extremist."

Cabinet member for community safety, Cllr Afzal Akram, told the Guardian he was disappointed the film did not look at the many more initiatives across the borough which aimed to achieve community cohesion.

He said that a report detailing the views of Waltham Forest people from all groups was due to be published in March.