While Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad conceded today that author Dr Rohan Gunaratna did not link the Barisan Nasional directly to al-Qaeda in his book, he ruled out the possibility of making peace with the offended author.

Mahathir said he found after reading the book that BN was not linked to al-Qaeda but only to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a southern Philippines separatist group.

"The thing is, the (link) was made in the United Nations report and attributed to (Gunaratna's) book.

"But we have to study the book carefully. I read it during the cabinet meeting this morning and I found that he linked BN with MILF. Even PAS was linked with the MILF," he told reporters during a press conference at the Malaysia Institute of Islamic Understanding this afternoon.

However, the prime minister dismissed all possibility of Malaysia apologising to Gunaratna, as demanded by the latter, over recent criticism against him by BN leaders.

"We don't apologise to such people. Anyway, they should be much more careful about what they write," he said.

Last week, Malaysian leaders expressed shock when the UN Security Council monitoring group of the Afghan Sanctions Committee included in its progress report a chart linking several Malaysian organisations to al-Qaeda via their alleged connection with the MILF.

The chart which named BN, PAS, the Islamic Youth Movement of Malaysia (Abim) and the Indian Muslim Congress of Malaysia (Kimma), among others was said to be based on Gunaratna's book Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.

At the receiving end of strong criticism, Gunaratna had urged Malaysian leaders to read his book before accusing him of making the al-Qaeda link.

No UN response

On BN's connections with the MILF, Mahathir said the link is likely to have been made because the government had served as witness to the signing of an agreement between the Philippines government and the MILF last year in Kuala Lumpur.

"We do have contacts with MILF because we were helping the Philippines government to resolve their problems in the south," he said.

Meanwhile, Mahathir said the UN Security Council had still not responded to a protest letter sent by Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Hasmy Agam, over the disputed section of the monitoring group's report.

Hasmy had submitted the protest letter last week after receiving a copy of the report.

'Dumb' paper

On another matter, Mahathir rebuked the Asian Wall Street Journal newspaper for making an error in carrying an illustration of the Malaysian flag for an article on Indonesia and Pakistan.

The article, Megawati Dilemma mirrors Pakistan's, appeared on the front page of the newspaper today with a picture of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri against the Malaysian flag.

"I don't know why people read this paper. They don't know anything. They just want to sell papers...We can say that they are dumb," said the prime minister.

However, Bernama reported earlier that the AWSJ had written to the Prime Minister's office admitting that the error was "entirely unintentional" and was not intended to make any implications concerning Malaysia.

AWSJ also said a correction would be carried in its Thursday edition.