“No, the kingdom is not backing (the strikes) in the real term of the word,” the Prince said, quoted in ‘Al-Riyadh’ newspaper.

“The kingdom only has a position” on the anti-terror campaign, he said, without elaborating.

The US-led coalition should work to avoid bombing innocent civilians and concentrate strikes on terrorists, the minister said after arriving back in Riyadh from a meeting of Arab Gulf ministers in Bahrain.

But Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz did blame Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Saudi-born Prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden for the deaths of innocent civilians in Afghanistan.

“We feel the pain for the harm inflicted on people having no relation with the current events in Afghanistan. It is regrettable that wars do not differentiate between people,” he said.

“I believe that Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden are responsible for (the harm) on these innocent people, and god will punish them, because they are the cause for what is happening now.

“I feel amazed how the Afghan people and interests of Muslims are being sacrificed for the sake of (saving) individuals,” Prince Ahmad was quoted as saying. He added that such actions should be condemned by all Muslims.

Washington: Saudi Prince Turki as-Sudairi fears that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf may be toppled if the USA continues to bomb Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramzan, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The Prince, the publisher of Al-Riyadh newspaper, and other members of the royal family fear destabilisation of the Islamic world if the war against Afghanistan continues during Ramzan or if the USA begins targeting other nations such as Iraq, says the journal. “Ramadan (Ramzan) is very important,” said Prince Turki. “Emotions will run high. There will be more support for Islamic groups. Some governments can be toppled.”

Asked what countries he was referring to, the Prince said: “Pakistan, Indonesia. We worry about civil war in Pakistan. The impact will be dramatic.”

Meanwhile, US-Saudi relations are at a “crossroads” as Saudi Arabia is a principle source of funding for Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida terrorist network, an American daily has said.

Commenting editorially, the Wall Street Journal says “the US support for the House of Saud has now yielded Saudi support for those waging war on the US homeland.”

“Today the dominant fact of the US-Saudi relationship is that this ‘friend’ is a principal source of funding for the Al-Qaida,” it says, adding that “the US-Saudi relationship is at a crossroads”.

The paper says “if a more radical regime is going to take hold in Saudi Arabia, better to face that fact sooner rather than later. Coping with an overtly hostile Saudi Government would at least have the virtue of clarity that does not exist today. It would also force a decision on whether to take over the Saudi oilfields, which would put an end to OPEC.”

It also says that a month before the September 11 terror attacks in the USA, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah had said that Saudi Arabia and the USA had separate interests.

In a letter to Mr Bush in August, Prince Abdullah had said that “a time comes when peoples and nations part...it is time for the USA and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate interests,” the paper says.

Spokesman Fric falt said Brahimi had “no time” to meet ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef to discuss the US-led airstrikes against the Islamic militia and its ally, alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Brahimi has been discussing options for the country’s post-Taliban future with a wide range of people, including the Pakistani leadership and exiled Afghan community leaders.

He met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and exiled Afghan community leaders here yesterday.

The Taliban accuses the United Nations of being a pawn of the West and has pulled out of UN-backed peace talks with opposition forces.

It has also refused to take part in any discussions about sharing power to create a broad-based, multi-ethnic government.

Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar was reported to have ordered the ambassador not to meet the UN special representative.

The Taliban has pulled out of past un-backed peace talks with opposition forces in protest against the sanctions imposed by it.

AIP quoted Zaeef as saying that Brahimi’s office had expressed an interest in a meeting. “We contacted Kandahar and the Amirul Momeneen (Omar) rejected the request.”

Zaeef did meet UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ruud Lubbers yesterday to discuss the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

He said: “We are not interested in meeting Brahimi. There is no need to meet him and nobody has any right to install a broad-based government in Afghanistan.”

He expressed concern about popular opposition to a prolonged campaign in Afghanistan, but said the domestic opposition to his decision to back the USA in its attacks on the ruling Taliban had been less than expected.

“One has to achieve the objective of the military operation,” Genral Musharraf, who is head of the Pakistani armed forces, said in an interview with Reuters Television at his residence.

General Musharraf, who has been praised for abandoning the Taliban and becoming a key ally in the US campaign against them, is to meet US President George W. Bush while at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in November.

“I only hope that this (military objective) is achieved before Ramadan. There is a possibility,” he said, referring to the month of fasting that begins in mid-November.

“But if that does not happen, I would discuss the matter with him (Bush) but I wouldn’t be pressing him as such.’’ However, General Musharraf said he saw the growing possibility of a revolt against the Taliban paving the way for a political solution that would end the need for the daily bombing that has inflicted an increasing toll on civilians.

“No, it’s not wishful thinking,” General Musharraf said when pressed about the prospect of desertions in the dominant Pashtoon tribe that has supported the Taliban so far.

“Who is the head of the Pashtoon? Not the Taliban. It is a very calculated remark that I am making,” said the former commando leader, declining to go into details about who he expected to leave the Taliban.

He defended the Taliban until the September 11 attacks on the USA, when he lined up behind the US campaign against them for sheltering Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant blamed for the devastation in New York and Washington.

Veteran war correspondent Tony Clifton, who has covered several American military engagements from Vietnam to Iraq, predicts in an article in the magazine that the Americans will be in Afghanistan for years if they don’t change their war tactics.

“The way to get Bin Laden and win this war has to be the traditional Afghan way. Send agents with (literally) tens of millions of dollars to buy his hide, and pay the Taliban to defect. It might work; similar strategies have in the past. Fighting the Afghans never has,” says Clifton in a detailed examination of both the psyche of Afghan fighters and the American public.

Unlike Vietnam, where tonnes of bombs were dropped in unison, and the Gulf war, where “terrified” Iraqis fell over each other to surrender in the face of ferocious American bombing, the Taliban in Afghanistan seem unaffected.

Taliban’s strategy is to hold out for the next few weeks until Ramadan, sit out the winter, then, when Americans send in ground troops, to get some, drag them through the streets as in Somalia “and wait for the will of the USA to crumble,” Clifton says.

Furthermore, he points out, the Taliban are waiting for outside help not only from Saudi renegade Bin Laden’s agents and allies around the world but “from the huge armed militia in Pakistan, already seething on the verge of revolt.”

Were the conflict to drag on, these militia would target US soldiers at bases in Pakistan, planning bombings and hijackings, Clifton predicts.

“They may also take the fight to Kashmir,” where around 40 persons were killed in an attack on the state assembly building in Srinagar on October 1.

An official at the Federal Court of Appeal here yesterday confirmed the deportation order against Parminder Singh Saini. A lower court had let him stay in Canada despite his earlier conviction and commuted death sentence in the hijacking.

In a unanimous ruling released this week, the appeal court wrote that Pakistan’s legal system is not the same as Canada’s and its pardon system was not necessarily valid in Canada.

The judges also found that, even if they could accept the Pakistani pardon, the original conviction “in this case was for an offence so abhorrent to Canadians, and arguably so terrifying to the rest of the civilised world, that our court is not required to respect a foreign pardon of such an offence.”

A police spokesman said the police, firefighters and bomb disposal experts were called after the suspicious mail items were identified in the lobby of Tuynhuys, the pillared white building alongside Parliament in Cape Town.

Presidential spokesman Bheki Khumalo said Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma were not in the building, but Cabinet Ministers representing economic portfolios were meeting at the time.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel was briefing Parliament nearby, but was not affected.

Government officials who asked not to be named said 12 Cabinet Ministers and about 30 officials were taken to a nearby hospital for tests after two suspicious parcels were opened, revealing an unidentified white powder.

Officers entered the building in full-body suits with breathing equipment and left with unidentified items in a red plastic bag.