Asian elders were branded as "useless" by angry young men who said the older generation did not care about them.

In a tense debate in the Al Badr Centre, Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, teenagers accused community leaders of caring more about internal power struggles than real issues such as drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and unemployment.

Imams, community leaders and Muslim councillors were all criticised.

One 16-year-old, who gave his name as Bobby, said: "They are useless. They waste our money, they play politics. They don't look at people's problems."

Youngsters as young as ten asked why they had been banned from the mosque.

They said religious leaders preached peace but internal politics had led to violence in mosques.

Student Ahmed Ali, 19, of Warren Street, Leyton, said: "Say I get my girl pregnant. If I've got a habit of taking drugs, who's going to talk to me? They just want to think about who's got power and where they are going to open a new mosque."

Elders showed that the resentment was two-sided.

One said: "We know about you young people, what you do."

Raja Sabir of the Waltham Forest Islamic Association added: "We don't have time for anybody's sex problems or music problems."

In the wake of Home Secretary John Reid's visit to Leyton when he warned Muslim mothers to watch out for signs that their children had become radicalised by Islamist extremists, youngsters appealed for support.

One asked his imam: "When something happens we are being accused of it. We want to know what he can do for us."

The new imam of the Lea Bridge Road Mosque, Mohammed Ibrahim, said that in Bradford the council had put in place child protection policies which helped flag up when young people were being targeted, but said Waltham Forest had no similar policies.

The meeting shed some light on the question the world has been asking itself in the wake of several Waltham Forest young people being charged with offences under the terrorism act.

Could a community which seemed so cohesive really harbour terrorists?

In the Guardian a week after the arrests, the man behind the debate, Hanif Qadir of the Active Change Foundation, warned that vulnerable Muslim youngsters were being targeted by Islamist extremists.

At the meeting he told imams they must reach out to young people.

The council's cabinet member for community safety, Cllr Afzal Akram, agreed, saying he thought mosque buildings which were only open for prayers were being wasted.

He pledged to work in partnership with the mosques to open them up more.

By Sarah Cosgrove