Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Monday called on the country's mainstream Muslims to play a major role to help prevent a terrorism attack on Australian soil.

Downer's comments came two weeks after 18 terrorist suspects were arrested during raids in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's largest and second largest cities, and charged with planning a terror attack in Australia.

Australian Associated Press quoted Downer as saying the war against terror was not one based on religion or culture, but ideology.

"The key to winning the battle of ideas, to exposing the terrorists' bankrupt ideology, will be the efforts of mainstream Muslims," he told the Center for Muslim States and Societies in Perth.

"Intra-faith dialogue is central to this battle of ideas," he said.

"Mainstream Muslims are much more likely to have an effect on extremists and potential extremists than people of other faiths," he said.

"And mainstream Muslims, I think, have a responsibility to challenge extremist interpretations of Islam," he said.

Downer also said the government's tough new anti-terror laws were not targeted at Muslims, instead, they were designed to prevent a terror attack in Australia and would be closely monitored.

"And I emphasize whenever I have the opportunity - these laws are not targeted at Muslims," he said.

"Any atrocity will affect us all - Muslims as much as others," he said.

Downer's comments also came days after a video tape was seized by Indonesian police showing a masked man warning that Australia will face more attacks unless it pulls its troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The masked man was identified by police as fugitive Bali bomb suspect Noordin Top.

Eighty-eight and four Australians were killed in bali bombings in 2002 and 2005 respectively.

Australia, who maintains around 1,300 troops in and around Iraq, is the only one in core countries in the US-led coalition forces in the war-torn Middle East country which has never experienced a major attack on home soil.

Source: Xinhua