JOHANNESBURG, Jan 2: Former South African president Nelson Mandela is to inform US President George W. Bush he has modified his “unreserved support” for the bombings in Afghanistan, his office said on Wednesday.

“We are writing to President Bush to appropriately qualify the view we previously expressed to him,” his office said in a statement.

Mandela, 83, expressed support for US-led military operations against Osama bin Laden and the war in Afghanistan during a visit to the United States in November.

“We expressed the opinion that tragic as the war may be, it was justified in this case as it proved the only method available for flushing out the terrorists whom the Taliban government in Afghanistan refused to hand over to the United States,” the statement said.

“Subsequent discussions with our family, friends and advisors have convinced us that our view may be one-sided and overstated.”

Friends and advisers have voiced concern that Mandela’s initial support for the war “gives the impression that we are insensitive to and uncaring about the suffering inflicted upon the Afghan people”.

“We (...) regret if the manner in which we stated our position gave any offence to Muslims in South Africa and throughout the world,” the statement added.

Mandela plans to meet South African Muslim leaders to convey this message to them. Some 1.5 per cent of the South Africa’s 44.5 million people are Muslims.

Last month, Mandela ran into a barrage of protest when he expressed support for US military strikes in Afghanistan during a speech at a mosque in Durban, on the east coast.

While defending military action, he said at the mosque: “I never supported the bombing of the whole of Afghanistan and the killing of innocent (people). I confined myself to bin Laden and his organisation.”

Mandela’s office said the labelling of bin Laden as the terrorist responsible the September 11 terror attacks in the United States before he had been convicted in court could also “be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law”.

His office called on the United Nations to play “a leading role in combating terrorism”.

While speaking in Cape Town early in December, Mandela criticised the United States and Britain for acting without a mandate from the UN Security Council and said it was wrong to “act unilaterally and bomb a sovereign country”.

On that occasion he warned it would be “a disaster” for the United States and Britain to extend the war on terrorism to bombing Iraq.

On Wednesday his office reiterated its opposition to all forms of terrorism. “We support the stance of our government in joining international efforts to combat and eradicate terrorism,” it said.

“And we should urgently address the situations of conflict throughout the world as these provide fertile grounds for the growth of terrorism.”—AFP