(IPS) As the United States' hunt for those responsible for Tuesday's apparent terror attacks gets underway, it would need to ensure that its policy does not assume the character of a confrontation with the Muslim world.

While no particular group or individual has been formally accused of the crime, US officials and 'experts' are being reported as airing strong suspicions that Muslim extremist groups based either in the Middle East or Afghanistan are involved in the attacks.

They have named as a key suspect particularly the Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, who has vowed to expel US forces from the Middle East and the Gulf.

Bin Laden was blamed for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and last year's attack on the USS Cole, a navy destroyer, in Yemen.

If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks was perpetrated by a group which happens to be Muslim or Middle Eastern, the US response, as stated by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, should be ''cool and rationale'' rather than a knee-jerk reaction whose consequences will be as bad as the causes of the US retaliation.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, while condemning terrorism, expressed his ''concern that the United States would retaliate against those responsible and this in turn could claim more lives''.

Three issues

The United States would then need to do three things so that its response does not become a conflict with the Muslim world.

First, it must separate the madness of the acts of terrorism, in which thousands of Americans have been victims, from the methods to pursue the terrorists.

US President George W Bush made a somber and sober speech to the American people on Tuesday, calmly and in a matter-of-fact manner clearly enunciating US policy without apportioning blame or focusing on any particular group.

However, he also said that the United States would not differentiate between the terrorists and those who harbour them, a hint at action against any country that might have helped the terrorists in their nefarious designs.

Second, the United States should not allow Israel to influence its anti-terrorist agenda - otherwise, the issue will become more complicated and mired in needless controversy.

Israel would prefer to link the American anti-terrorist agenda with its own desire to quell the Palestinian 'intifadah', which is now almost a year old. It would want to see these terrorism acts as providing a pretext for continued repression in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

Third, in promoting any anti-terrorist strategy against the Muslim groups allegedly involved in terrorism, it would be prudent for the United States to involve Muslim countries who themselves have been victims of terrorism -- like Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

This approach would be more effective than a 'go-it-alone' strategy that would be counter-productive, as was the case with former US President Bill Clinton's cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and the Sudan on Aug 20, 1998, after the Aug 7 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Universal consensus

What needs to be avoided, at all costs, is having these acts of terrorism create a yawning chasm between the United States and the Muslim world, a sort of revival of the 'clash of civilisations' theory propounded by some who see both sides as 'natural' adversaries.

Muslim countries' condemnation of Tuesday's attacks, which has been swift, sharp and across-the-board, should be matched by American introspection in a review and reassessment of Washington's rather one-dimensional Middle East policy, which is perceived by Muslims as promoting the persecution of Palestinians by the Israelis.

The need is to forge a universal consensus against terrorism. But at the same time, it should not become a buzzword to bulldoze legitimate dissent or struggles for self-determination among dispossessed peoples.

Thus, the challenge before Bush is to differentiate between the handful of terrorists from the vast majority of Muslim peoples who are peace loving and who desire a more equitable relationship with the United States and its allies like Israel.

This would help in going after the terrorists, after isolating them.