LEADING East Lancashire Muslim Shahid Malik has warned that young men who go to fight for the Taliban against Britain could be guilty of treason.

The move came amid reports that dozens, if not hundreds of young Muslims from this country going to war against British and American forces in Afghanistan.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said they had no record of any East Lancashire people making the trip.

Tory Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe has said that young British Muslims who fought against British forces were guilty of treason and should be locked up and tried if they returned to the country.

Mr Malik, a member of Labour's National Executive Committee and a prominent figure in Burnley, said: "I find myself in the unique and perhaps uncomfortable position of agreeing with what Ann Widdecombe said." He said Muslims, like all British citizens, had a responsibility to support the country and the government.

He said any young British Muslims who did go to fight for the Afghan regime were "certainly responsible" and blamed it on a misguided idealism, which he said "has consequences at home. It feeds stereotypes and disturbances in Britain of the sort we had in June and July, including in Burnley, where I live".

Mr Malik said it caused problems in relations between British Muslims and other parts of the community but it also caused "great distress to the friends and families of those who went to fight".

He rejected claims by other Muslims that there was a duty on young British members of the faith to fight for the Taliban and said that these were people with enthusiasms, passions and idealisms that were misguided.

But he did say that many Muslims born and brought up in Britain like himself did not feel fully integrated. He said that in some cases there was "a sense of not actually belonging which forms part of an identity crisis."

However, he stressed that this was no reason for going to fight against British troops or for the Taliban.

Mozaquir Ali, a councillor in Daneshouse, Burnley, said he could not understand why anyone would want to fight for the Taliban regime, but could see why some would be attracted to a war against America.

He said: "There is a perception that America is a bully to Muslim countries, and that may be why young people in particular might go and fight for the Taliban."

The Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We do not have any record at all of people going to do this. We suspect that estimates of thousands of British Muslims going to do so are exaggerated.

"Its more like hundreds or dozens. People leaving the country are under no obligation to say where they are going or why.

"People going to Afghanistan to fight against British forces or for the Taliban would be most unlikely to inform us before they left."