There are growing signs that support for the US-led war on terrorism is wavering in the Muslim world as it waits for concrete proof of Osama bin Laden's alleged complicity in the attacks on New York and Washington.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday the evidence fingering bin Laden would be made public soon, but with US forces already massing for an expected strike on Afghanistan, patience in many Muslim nations is wearing thin.

"We will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, who has been responsible" for the attacks, Powell said on the ABC network.

But officials in Pakistan say the only information they have received from the United States on bin Laden's links to terrorism has been related to the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

To date, nothing solid has been communicated regarding evidence collected on the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which has sheltered bin Laden since 1996, has said it would be willing to consider putting the Saudi-born dissident on trial if the United States provided convincing evidence of his guilt.

Washington has firmly rejected the Taliban's stance, insisting that it hand bin Laden into US custody immediately or face the consequences.

At the same time the US authorities have fended off the requests for evidence, citing the importance of discretion in conducting its investigation into the terrorist atrocities.

The initial outpouring of sympathy from the Muslim world for the victims of the attacks on the United States has in recent days been replaced by a concern bordering on hostility over the scope of the planned retaliation.

Former Pakistan foreign minister Sartaj Aziz said Sunday the issue of evidence was crucial given US preparations for military action against Afghanistan and possible reprisals against targets in other Muslim countries.

Given the religious sensitivities inherent in the current crisis, Aziz said the United States ought to present its findings to some international judicial body before unleashing its military machine.

He pointed out that a thick dossier had been compiled against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic prior to his transfer to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Arab League chief Amr Mussa warned in Jordan on Sunday that US strikes against any Arab states would be unacceptable.

"There are different ways of fighting against terrorism and it must be the subject of consultations" among Arab countries, the head of the 22-country grouping told reporters.

"Clearly, we would never accept a strike against an Arab country, no matter what the circumstances," he said.

Meanwhile, the Gulf monarchies said Sunday that the United States must clearly define the framework of the proposed war on terrorism, also pledging their support for efforts to track down the perpetrators of the attacks.

"Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are ready to take part in any action in a communal framework with well-defined objectives," Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Mubarak al-Khalifa said at the closed-door Gulf foreign ministers' meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan also underlined the need for Washington to take the world into its confidence.

"We have said, and many world leaders have said, that evidence should be shared with the international community," Khan said.

Pakistani officials have commented in private on the fact that arrests arising out of the US investigation so far have mostly been of people linked to Arab networks in the Middle East, and have questioned when concrete proof will emerge of a direct link with bin Laden.

According to Aziz, the "war frenzy" emanating from Washington was seen by many Muslim countries as carrying an anti-Islamic bias, despite assurances from the US administration that its enemy was terrorism and not Islam.

The accusations the United States has levelled against the Taliban in Afghanistan and regimes in other Muslim countries suspected of harbouring terrorists were "very, very serious," Aziz said.

"If this is pursued, it will force countries and groups to polarise along religious lines," he added.

( 09/23/2001)