President Bush visited a mosque yesterday, removed his shoes in respect, and challenged Muslim clerics to more aggressively denounce terrorism.

"We must encourage more Muslim leaders to . . . speak out against radical extremists who infiltrate mosques, to denounce organizations that use the veneer of Islamic belief to support and fund acts of violence," Bush said at the rededication of the Islamic Center of Washington.

Bush also urged leaders to do more to thwart the notion held by many "young Muslims - even in our country and elsewhere in the free world - who believe suicide bombing may some day be justified."

That call to sanity comes after a nationwide poll released last month showed that one in four young Muslims in the United States believe suicide bombings that kill innocents in the name of Islam are OK in some cases.

The Islamic radicals are "Islam's true enemy," Bush said, and ticked off some of the atrocities they have committed against fellow Muslims and even their own holy sites.

"In Iraq, they killed a young boy and then booby-trapped his body so it would explode when his family came to retrieve him," Bush said.

"They put children in the back seat of a car so they could pass a security checkpoint and then blew up the car with the children still inside."

The terrorists have beaten and killed teachers in Afghanistan, bombed a wedding reception in Jordan and blew up a hotel in Jakarta, the president said.

"Men and women of conscience have a duty to speak out and condemn this murderous movement before it finds its path to power," the president said.

"We must help millions of Muslims as they rescue a proud and historic religion from murderers and beheaders who seek to soil the name of Islam."

Moderate Muslim leaders, he said, "have the most powerful and influential voice."

Bush thanked those who have already aggressively condemned radicalism and noted the outpouring of American goodwill that has been spent on Muslims around the globe "in times of war and natural disaster."

Specifically, he cited the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia, the U.S. intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo and efforts to stop genocide in Sudan.

Yesterday's speech, marking the 50th anniversary of the Washington Islamic Center, is part of a White House move to recast the war on terror as an effort to "rescue" the Muslim faith from extremists who use religion as "a path to power and a means for domination."

Bush also sought to improve America's image among Muslims worldwide and said their real enemy is not America but Islamic radicals.

"I have invested the heart of my presidency in helping Muslims fight terrorism and claim their liberty and find their own unique paths to prosperity and peace," he said.

If Muslims around the world want to understand what America's about, Bush suggested they look no father than the mosque where he was speaking - it's located down the road from a synagogue, Lutheran church, Catholic parish, Greek Orthodox chapel and Buddhist temple.

Each, he said, has "followers who practice their deeply held beliefs and live side by side in peace."

Bush's visit to the Muslim center on Embassy Row was the third of his presidency. His first visit came six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when he visited the mosque to denounce prejudice against Muslim Americans.