Although Malaysia had expected the United Nations Security Council monitoring team which linked Barisan Nasional to the al-Qaeda terror network to retract its allegation, no correction was made in the team's third report published last week.

In the UN Afghan Sanctions Committee's third report, the team acknowledged the breakthroughs in investigations relating to the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist group in the region, but made no reference to protests by Malaysia over a chart in its previous report that connected political parties and organisations here to the al-Qaeda.

Contacted today, a Foreign Affairs Ministry official said any correction was likely to be made separately since the monitoring group's report was intended to record regular progress in international anti-terrorism efforts.

He added that the UN monitoring team had still not offered its final response to Malaysia's demand for the retraction of the chart although the matter was supposed to have been raised for discussion during the Afghan Sanctions Committee meeting last week.

"The report (published) is only the monitoring team's progress report. The sanctions committee have met but they may not have finished discussing their reports," said the official who declined to be named.

Last week, Malaysia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Hasmy Agam, reportedly received a written undertaking from the team that it would recommend the UN sanctions committee to remove the chart from new copies of the report as well as its electronic version.

However, the monitoring team did not state if it would recommend for a correction notice to be issued to all recipients of the original report.

A check on the UN documentation website later also revealed that the annex had not been removed from the second report's online version.

PAS' protest

Meanwhile, PAS international affairs bureau chief Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli said the party was not successful in lodging an official protest over the chart which also linked PAS with al-Qaeda.

Following the publication of the monitoring team's second report in September, PAS submitted two memoranda to the UN secretary-general's office via the UN Development Programme office in Kuala Lumpur.

"(The UN) has replied to us. (We were told) that the correct way to complain would be to send in our memorandum to the sanctions committee.

"However, this committee does not accept any complaints from non-governmental organisations or political parties. Only representatives of governments can send in protests," said Mohd Hatta when contacted last week.

Asked if the party would consider requesting the government to protest on its behalf, he said the government was unlikely to respond to them.

"We do not think the government will do anything on behalf of other groups. Our opinion is that the report is a farce. It is a useless report," added the PAS leader.

Attempts to get the UN monitoring group to comment were unsuccessful.

The UN monitoring team's second report caused outrage in Malaysia by including an annex in which eight organisations were linked indirectly to al-Qaeda via their alleged connection with southern Philippines separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Aside from BN and PAS, other organisations listed in the chart were the Movement of Islamic Unity (APU), the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (Abim), the Front Malaysian Islamic Council (FMIC), the Indian Muslim Congress of Malaysia (Kimma) and the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (MIYM).

Al-Qaeda helmed by Osama bin Laden was said to have masterminded and executed the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

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