Moderate Muslims who want to see adherents to the faith assimilate into the mainstream American culture are in many ways reassured by a new poll reflecting the community's views. But the survey also sets off alarms, they said, pointing to respondents' views on suicide bombings and 9/11.

The Pew Research Center survey of more than 1,000 American Muslims showed more than one in four U.S. Muslims under the age of 30 believe suicide bombings to be justified under certain circumstances.

The breakdown shows that two percent say it is often justified, 13 percent say sometimes justified and 11 percent say rarely justified. Among Muslims of all ages, 13 percent of respondents condoned suicide bombings and 80 percent did not.

Critics of Islam will predictably pick and choose portions of the poll, said Ibraham Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group whose "moderate" tag critics have frequently called into question.

"There was an unfortunate media emphasis on a tiny minority when the overwhelming majority of the Muslim community rejects terrorism and religious extremism," Hooper told Cybercast News Service.

"If there is a tiny minority that can be addressed through education and persuasion," he added. "I can't imagine a right-minded person saying they condone suicide bombings."

But M. Zuhdi Jasser, the chairman of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, contends that there is reason to worry.

He cited not just the suicide bombing issue, but the fact that 28 percent of respondents said they did not believe Arabs were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Another 32 percent said they did not know, and 40 percent said they believed Arabs were responsible.

Jasser said in an interview that the finding reflected a state of denial in the Muslim community that must be fixed in order to break the control of extremism.

"This is an outgrowth of political Islam and the focus on foreign policy rather than the moral and spiritual components of Islam," Jasser said. "Left to the current debate in America, these numbers could go up. If we change the conversation and deconstruct the legitimacy of the grievances, it will decrease."

On the positive side, overwhelming majorities - close to or more than two-thirds of American Muslims polled - say they are happy with their communities, have never been discriminated against, believe they can get ahead through hard work, and believe life in the U.S. is better for women than life in Muslim countries.

But while those numbers may suggest that such Muslims are less likely to subscribe to radical Islam, terrorism expert Daniel Pipes said that is not necessarily the case.

"There is little sociology to radical Islam - poor, rich, educated, uneducated, young, old - it is an attractive ideology for those with radical attitudes," Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, told Cybercast News Service.