Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammed today warned that if the United States invades Iraq it would create a flow of fresh terrorist recruits.

Muslims have been branded by the west as potential terrorists and penalised and humiliated when they travelled abroad in the wake of Sept 11, 2001, Mahathir said in a front-page interview with the Times of Oman.

"There is an imperative need for greater efforts by the international Muslim community to see a peaceful resolution to all conflicts, including security tensions," he told the Muscat daily.

"The real dilemma is nothing but a clash of civilisations, especially between the west and Islam", he said in the interview given in Kuala Lumpur.

The prime minister questioned why the West did not seek to unearth the real causes of terrorism and eliminate them, deploring that many intellectual voices have been ignored on the subject.

"Forcing Western political agendas and values on other cultures is not desirable. The arrogance of power must be eliminated. The use of force should never be considered as a solution to avert terrorism," Mahathir said.