JP/3/B00

Agencies, Doha

The head of the world's biggest Islamic organization condemned the attacks on the United States but said as he opened an emergency meeting of the group on Wednesday that retaliation should not harm civilians.

"We assert our utter rejection of these attacks and assert that confronting them must not touch innocent civilians and must not extend beyond those who carried out those attacks," said the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

In opening remarks in Doha to ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), who represent 1.2 billion Muslims, Sheikh Hamad said the response to those who ordered the Sept. 11 attacks must be founded on good evidence.

"This requires the existence of irrefutable evidence against the perpetrators and that military operations, after announcing the evidence, be limited to them alone," said Sheikh Hamad, who currently presides over the 56-nation grouping.

The OIC foreign ministers were meeting in Qatar for a one-day emergency session called by Iran.

Many ordinary Muslims, in the Arab world and elsewhere, have expressed anger at the U.S.-led assault on Washington's prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, and his Afghan Taliban protectors.

But their governments have remained largely silent after years of criticizing the Taliban for hosting militants such as Saudi- born bin Laden, who has vowed to purge Islamic states of pro- Western leaders.

Only Syria, Iraq and Iran -- known for their anti-American stance -- have publicly criticized the U.S.-British strikes.

Washington warned the United Nations on Monday that its war on terrorism might extend beyond the borders of Afghanistan. Iraq, a sworn enemy of the United States since the 1991 Gulf War, has been suggested as a potential target for more U.S.-led strikes.

Many OIC members states, however, are reluctant to sanction strikes on fellow Muslim or Arab countries.

Sheikh Hamad also called on the United Nations to convene an anti-terror conference "to draw up an international agreement with an aim of fighting against terrorism, which affects all its member states."

He stressed that the agreement must "define terrorism and differentiate between this phenomenon and the fight of peoples against occupation."

Delegates at the meeting said the ministers might decide to send a team of senior Muslim officials to Washington to dissuade the U.S. administration from extending its military campaign.

U.S. President George W. Bush has repeatedly said that his campaign is not only directed at Afghanistan, sparking fears that other U.S. adversaries such as Iraq and Sudan could be hit.

Delegates said the OIC was not concerned about the fate of the Taliban, whose radical ideology has won it little sympathy from Muslim governments.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri on Tuesday predicted that his country could be next to face attack.

"We think that the United States may use this opportunity to...take vengeance against the Iraqi people because Iraq is not ready to surrender its territory to become a colony for the United States, Britain and Israel," he told reporters.

Delegates will seek consensus on the meaning of "terrorism", ensuring that any definition does not link it to Islam or groups such as Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hizbollah, waging what Muslims see as legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.

Analysts and officials forecast that a final communique will voice solidarity for the impoverished Afghan people, reflecting the anxiety of OIC ministers to assuage public hostility in their own countries to the U.S.-led assault.