The government will not support a war against Iraq even if the United Nations Security Council gives the go-ahead, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today, significantly hardening his position against an attack.

War was a primitive "Stone Age" way of settling problems and "we will object to attempts to attack Iraq, even if the United Nations decides that...war o­n Iraq is allowed," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

"This (war) is an act which kills innocent people. Women, children and old people who are not soldiers will be killed," said Mahathir.

"This is the way of people of primitive times. In the Stone Age the way of settling problems was to kill other people."

Until this latest declaration, made during a visit to Johor Baru, Mahathir had expressed his support for a "multilateral" approach to the Iraqi crisis, insisting that the US should not act unilaterally and that Iraq should comply with UN resolutions to disarm.

Later this month Malaysia takes over the leadership of the 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement of mainly developing countries and from October will head the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference. AFP