Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today it was legitimate to use terror tactics in response to terrorism, the official Bernama news agency reported.

Referring to Palestinian suicide bombers, Mahathir was quoted as saying: "It may be termed as terrorist attacks but what choice have you? You have no choice, so you attack. When people use terror against you, it is legitimate to use terror (in return)."

Mahathir was speaking to reporters after a meeting on terrorism here this week held by foreign ministers of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Mahathir had told the opening session of the meeting that terrorism could be defined as "attacks on civilians", which he said would include Palestinian suicide bombers as terrorists along with Israeli forces.

But the conference failed to endorse any definition of terrorism and specifically excluded the Palestinians from being labelled as terrorists, saying they were carrying out a just struggle.

Guilt feeling

Mahathir has long been a staunch supporter of the Palestinians, but since the Sept 11 terror attacks on the United States has won praise from Washington for his stand against terrorism.

Mahathir said today that the Israelis were attacking a country and killing civilians without declaring war and even carried out a de facto arrest of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who is under siege in his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"All this is wrong and the Palestinians, not having any other way of defending themselves, have to resort to this act of blowing themselves up even if their victims are civilians," he was quoted as saying by Bernama .

He said the Palestinians were fighting back with everything they had and such actions could only end if the world pressured Israel to stop its attacks against the Palestinians and evacuate all occupied territory.

However, he said the world community did not seem to see the Palestinian problem as something as relevant to them as the Sept 11 attacks, which prompted immediate action.

Most of the powerful countries in the world appeared to adopt the attitude that they had nothing to do with the fate of the Palestinians, he said.

"Of course, some of the European countries have begun to say something. But you know, Europe is still feeling guilty about the Holocaust. It dares not say anything against Israel.

World pressure

"And as a result, the Palestinians have to pay a price for the Jews being killed in Europe during the last (world) war," he was quoted as saying.

Mahathir said one of the causes of terrorism was the Palestinian issue and this had to be removed.

"The whole world must put pressure on Israel to stop its acts of terror. Until they stop it, they cannot blame the Palestinians for suicide bombings of Israelis, including their civilians," he said.