KL blasts 'Time' over terrorist report

KL blasts 'Time' over terrorist report

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has condemned U.S. magazine Time for alleging that Malaysia was training terrorists, and his officials Sunday charged it was a Western plot to discredit the country.

Mahathir described the article in the April 10 issue of Time as an "irresponsible, arm-twisting act" and a ploy to scupper Malaysia's economy.

The prime minister is a frequent critic of the foreign press. An article in Britain's Sunday Times last year led to British firms being briefly frozen out of bidding for contracts.

The article headlined, A Mad Dream of Global Terror, reported that Abu Sayyaf, a Moslem separatist group in the Philippines, was receiving arms, money and training from the governments of Libya and Islamic groups in the Middle East, Pakistan and Malaysia.