Sydney, Sept 4 (ZEENEWS.COM) The Australian government pressured local Muslims at the weekend to denounce terrorism, learn English and accept women as equals, as fears grew of a first attack on home soil.

Prime Minister John Howard led with calls for the country`s 300,000 Muslims to integrate fully into Australian society and adopt its values, sparking warnings that he was inciting racial violence.

Howard`s remarks came at the end of a week which saw 11 local Muslim men committed for trial on terrorism charges and a Muslim convert subjected to the first control order issued under controversial new anti-terror laws.

They also coincided with the arrest of 14 terror suspects in Britain, where the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks by young British Muslims that killed 56 people prompted Howard to express the fear that the same thing could happen in Australia.

"Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don`t already speak it," Howard said in a radio interview.

"People who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."

The head of the government`s own moderate Muslim advisory committee, Ameer Ali, said Howard risked inflaming tensions seen in rioting between white youths and Arab-Australians in Sydney last December.