DAVOS (Switzerland), Jan 24: A war in Iraq could foment anger and drive people towards terror attacks, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned during a debate with US Attorney General John Ashcroft at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Friday.

Asked by the moderator about the prospect of an attack on Iraq, Mahathir said: “If you do that you will kill a lot of innocent people, you are going to make a lot of people very angry, certainly a lot of Muslim people.”

Mahathir insisted that there was a need to deal with the root causes of extremism as well as to use enforcement to tackle terror.

“If we understand what moves them, then we should try our best not to amplify it, not to create other situations which would anger them some more and lead more people perhaps to join this group and to commit acts of terror,” he added.

Ashcroft did not respond directly, but often found himself at odds with some of the panel — which also included the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez and Kumi Naidoo, a US-based human rights activist — over the extent to which the causes of extremism should be tackled.

“I’m not sure I agree with what the causes of terrorism are,” he said.

“I’m not willing to say that in order to avoid terrorism we have to give up values that are fundamental and downplay them to appease the terrorist,” Ashcroft added.

Uribe insisted he was aiming to tackle attacks by rebel and paramilitary groups in Colombia through both tough security and measures to deal with poverty and human rights violations.

“This policy has to protect every Colombian and to respect human rights,” Uribe said, although he cautioned that it would take a long time for the country to be safe.

However, he added: “Today terrorism in Colombia isn’t a consequence of poverty, it is a cause.”

The Colombian president appealed for international financial assistance to help about 50,000 peasant families restore rainforest instead of cultivating coca plantations — used to make the drug cocaine which finances some of the rebel and paramilitary groups.

“We have to pay them and for that we need international cooperation,” he said.

The top US justice official praised international cooperation and information swapping, noting that “a coalition of 90 nations has come together in the fight against terrorism around the world”.—AFP