KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7: Osama bin Laden has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams and created a world of fear in which there is growing confrontation between Muslims and the West, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday.

“He has made the whole world frightened, people are frightened to do anything,” Mahathir said of the Al Qaeda leader.

“Osama bin Laden ... I think he may have succeeded beyond his dreams.

“And why has he succeeded? Because we are angry, we don’t know how to manage these things, and we fall into his trap,” he said.

Mahathir acknowledged that the US congressional election results were “a vote of confidence in the policies” of President George W. Bush, including his threat to attack Iraq.

But he pointed out that Islamic parties were also growing in strength, an apparent reference to recent elections in Turkey and several other countries.

“The Islamic parties are also becoming popular, so there is also going to be increasing confrontation,” Mahathir told a news conference.

“Both sides are going to play up their anger and hatred to the maximum. So we’re going to see a world which is not going to be very calm.”

The veteran prime minister, whose government has in detention more than 70 religious hardliners, some with alleged links to Al Qaeda, has regularly criticized the conduct of the US-led “war on terrorism”.

He says it does not address the root causes of terrorism, such as the plight of the Palestinians in the Middle East, and that “anti-Muslim hysteria” in the United States in fact inflames anti-American sentiment.

The United States and other Western countries have also been criticized by Southeast Asian nations for warning their citizens not to travel to the region after the Bali bomb blast on Oct 12 which killed nearly 200 people.

Mahathir said their countries were equally dangerous as terrorists could strike anywhere, and suggested Australia was “particularly unsafe for Muslims” after the security services there staged armed raids on the homes of Muslims.

The Malaysian leader’s remarks illustrated clearly the dilemma faced by moderate Muslim leaders in the “war on terrorism” — they want to put down extremism but do not want to see ordinary Muslims driven into the arms of hardliners.—AFP