(timesofindia)- - LONDON: Britain's interior minister has warned that the government risks losing the ideological war with Al Qaeda as the terror group's so-called 'single extremist narrative' was proving ever more attractive to young British Muslims.

Home Secretary John Reid spoke at an emergency meeting of ministers and security officials and called for an urgent but controversial escalation in the propaganda war, a media report said.

"The Government needed to do much more to win the 'battle of ideas,' Reid said. The meeting came as ministers including Jack Straw, Ruth Kelly and Phil Woolas started to take a much more aggressive stance against radical Islam.

In order to counter the upper hand of Al Qaeda in the propaganda front, the government has decided to fund covertly an Islamic website appealing for moderation, the report said.

The site 'run as a grassroots initiative by Muslim organisations' has 'most of its financial backing from the Foreign Office and Home Office'. The site uses video and pod casts to spread an 'alternative message' to young Muslims.

After the meeting on October 12, a minister said Prime Minister Tony Blair was said to have ordered colleagues to start working with 'the leaders, not the panderers' in the Muslim community, pointing to a more critical approach to groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain, the report said.