A Singaporean daily and an international defence magazine have apologised to PAS over a report which said the party had political ties with the al-Qaeda terror network headed by Osama bin Laden.

Jane's Intelligence Review editor Chris Aaron said in a statement to Singapore's Sunday Times yesterday that the allegations were incorrect and the magazine "was happy" to retract them.

The report titled 'Al-Qaeda: The Asian Connection' said that PAS' headquarters "displays a poster of Osama reflecting the party's thinking on al-Qaeda."

The Singapore Straits Times published the report on Jan 4 and this irked PAS leaders who demanded for an apology.

'Defamatory and libellous'

Yesterday, PAS secretary-general Nasharudin Mat ISA threatened to sue the broadsheet for publishing the report if it did not apologise within seven days.

Describing the report as "defamatory and libellous", Nasarudin was quoted by the News Straits Times as saying, PAS lawyers would file a suit against the writer, publisher and printer of the newspaper if they failed to apologise before the deadline.

He added that the apology should be featured prominently in the daily which is circulated both in Singapore and Malaysia.

Sunday Times in its report yesterday said its sister publication, the

Straits Times , would also like to apologise for featuring the report.