KL urges Southeast Asia not to take part in fighting

KL urges Southeast Asia not to take part in fighting Associated Press Kuala Lumpur

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged Southeast Asian countries Tuesday not to participate in any fighting that might break out following the terror attacks in the United States.

"We should really not participate in war," Mahathir said in a nationally televised interview. "If we do, it will only help to escalate the problems, because an all-out war is the wrong solution, because many innocent people are going to be killed."

Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving ruler, said that efforts to purge terrorism must center on identifying its root causes - not with using military action, battling other countries or killing suspected terrorists.

"We must look into the causes - why is it some people are willing to kill themselves to achieve something that they believe in?" he said. "If we don't remove the causes, we are going to see terrorism forever."

Mahathir said that Southeast Asian heads of government would discuss the issue and measures to ensure that the region's economy is not crippled because of the attacks in their annual meeting in Brunei next month.

Mahathir, who has led this predominantly Muslim country for 20 years, said it was unfortunate that the suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks were Muslims, since this has caused some to assume that all people with "a Muslim name could be potential terrorists."

"There has been terrorism in Japan. There are Hindu terrorists, Jewish terrorists, too," the Malaysian leader said.

"In this case it happens to be Muslim terrorists ... yet there are terrorists who are non-Muslims, who are maybe even Christians."

Mahathir urged Americans to think rationally about what should be done, saying that this would make their actions "much more constructive."

Mahathir's comments came a day after he spoke by telephone with President George W. Bush, who expressed hopes of talking at greater length with Mahathir at an upcoming economic summit in China and assured him that the global anti-terrorism campaign was against evil, and not Islam.

The Malaysian leader has condemned the attacks and agreed to support a global anti-terrorism coalition, but has said the United States should not act unilaterally or launch strikes which could injure innocent people.