Police said at least two men entered the grounds of an Islamic school in Sydney’s western suburbs early Tuesday, smashing windows and damaging the residence of Imam Ahmed Shabbir, which is on the premises, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Appearing shaken but unhurt, Shabbir told ABC television he called police as the intruders battered his home.

“I told them that we are in a dangerous position, that people are attacking us so please come and help us,” he said.

While police said they were not treating the attack as a hate crime, Shabbir said Australian Muslims were fearful in the wake of the Bali bombing.

Australian Muslims have stepped up security around mosques and community centers fearing revenge attacks in the wake of the bomb attack that killed scores of young Australians in Bali.

Leaders of the country’s 500,000-strong Islamic community said they were worried Australians angry over the attacks, which have been blamed on Islamic fundamentalist groups, would indiscriminately target Muslims.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday there was a “strong suspicion” but no direct proof that the al-Qaeda network was behind the attacks.

“There is no direct proof in the sense of proof in a court of law,” Howard told ABC radio when asked about Indonesian officials’ view that al-Qaeda carried out he bombing.

But Howard added, “I have a very strong suspicion that it is either an al-Qaeda directed operation or inspired by al-Qaeda.”

“Clearly it is an act of terrorism. Al-Qaeda does have a worldwide network. It does have connections with cells that have been operating in Indonesia,” he said.

Imam Uzair Akbar, whose Holland Park Mosque in suburban Brisbane was badly damaged in an arson attack following last year’s September 11 attacks, has hired extra security guards.

“Emotions are running high and there is a lot of anger,” he told AFP. “It’s there in the back of my mind that it might happen again, I’d like to think it won’t but I thought that last year and my mosque was burned down.”

“The message to our Australian brothers and sisters is that we too condemn this terrible attack, our religion does not respect the taking of innocent blood.”

A 24-year-old man was convicted last week over the Brisbane arson attack, which the trial judge described as racially motivated. Police have increased patrols around mosques and community centers and political leaders have urged Australians not to blame Muslims for the outrage.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said that “there’s no point in picking on anyone on the basis of their religion or color or creed.”

Premiere Howard has also described Islam as a religion of peace and rejected the notion of the attackers acting for a religious cause.

“There’s nothing in the beliefs of Islam that invokes or warrants or calls upon the indiscriminate destruction of people, true Islam abhors that,” he said shortly after the attacks.

But sentiment on the ground is more volatile. A letter to the editor in the Tuesday edition of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph said, “It’s about time we woke up to the fact that the problem of world terrorism today lies firmly rooted in Islam.”

Sydney’s Muslim community was already feeling besieged in the lead up to the Bali bombing after a series of brutal gang rapes in the city carried out by Lebanese Muslim youths.

The rapists identified themselves as Muslims during the attacks and called their victims “Aussie pigs”.

While they have been captured and sentenced to long jail terms, the Muslim community feels it was unfairly tainted by an emphasis on the offenders’ religion.

Ali Tutka, an elder at the Anadolu Mosque in Sydney’s western suburbs, said prejudice against his community was already highly visible.

“It’s mainly the young people, swearing and writing on the walls,” he said. “There’s been nothing in the days since the attack but we’ll have to see what happens, people are angry.

“But I’m also very angry. I’ve been in Australia for 33 years and have had no problems, now all the Muslims get blamed for this terrible thing.

“I regret what happened, all Muslims in Australia regret it and the rest of Australia needs to understand that.”

For their part, Muslim associations around the country reported increased tensions but Rahim Ghairi of the West Australian Islamic Council told The Australian newspaper that so far this had only resulted in “name-calling, taunts”.

On the other hand, Australians vented frustration at their government in letters to newspapers Tuesday, October 15, blaming Howard’s close relationship with the United States for making their country a target for the bombing in Bali.

“No, Howard, there was nothing indiscriminate about the Bali blast,” said a Melbourne doctor in a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Think about it: why would terrorists want to target Australians? Get the message: we don't want you to suck up to George Bush.”

“Is it too harsh to argue that the egos of John Howard and (Foreign Minister) Alexander Downer and their desperate desire to be taken seriously on the world stage are responsible for the deaths of so many Australians in this weekend's Bali bombings?” asked Ken Webb in the Daily Telegraph.

“Messrs Howard, Downer and (Defense Minister Robert) Hill must be very proud of themselves. They have finally managed to talk Australia on to the world stage,” said another author.

The frustration began Monday as details of the horrific injuries suffered by young Australians at the Sari nightclub late Saturday began to emerge and as the nation's death toll climbed to at least 20 with 160 missing and feared dead.

“Perhaps our strutting PM will tiptoe now,” ran the headline on the letters page of the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Stop making us a target,” said one reader. “He (Howard) has jeopardized Australia’s security, using shameless fear-mongering to win an election and gain popularity,” wrote another.

The issue was also the focus of discussions on talk radio, a popular forum for public debate in the country, with a general theme being “just leave them (terrorists) alone”. Howard Tuesday strongly rejected the criticism.

“I would say to those people that they are wrong,” he said. “Terrorists murdered Australians in Bali, nobody else. They had no right, no justification, no possible moral explanation for what they did.”

Howard said there was no evidence that countries which took a lower profile in the fight against terror had their nationals spared.

He said more than 200 Kenyans died in al-Qaeda’s 1998 terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Germans tourists died in a terror bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia, and many Balinese died on Saturday night.

“This idea that you purchase immunity from terror by saying nothing about terror is not only morally bankrupt but it is also inaccurate in fact,” he said.