Straw: Saddam is a threat to Islam

Jack Straw warned yesterday that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction posed as great a threat to the Muslim world as to the West.

Speaking in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, the Foreign Secretary, said the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, had to be disarmed either peacefully or by force. "If he continues to get away with it, other would-be [weapons] proliferators will take heart and the world will become a far more dangerous place," Mr Straw told an audience in the capital, Jakarta.

The Foreign Secretary is on a tour of South-east Asia aimed at gathering support for British views on Iraq and other issues including terrorism and North Korea's nuclear programme. He has been to Singapore and will travel to Malaysia.

Indonesia is concerned that a war on Iraq will inflame anti-Western sentiment among its majority Muslim population. Hassan Wirajuda, the Foreign Minister, said a report due to be filed on 27 January by UN weapons inspectors would have more impact on the government's views than evidence of breaches presented by individual countries such as Britain and the US. He said Indonesia supported "multilateral efforts especially through the UN Security Council to solve and clarify the existence of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction".

In a speech aimed at defusing Muslim anger at the prospect of war, Mr Straw said action taken against Iraq should not be viewed as anti-Islam. He said that while people in both Britain and Indonesia were anxious about the prospect of war, "the consequences of a failure of nerve to deal with the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are potentially devastating for Muslims and non-Muslims alike".

He added: "The world would have then emboldened a dictator who had previously shown no mercy in turning chemical weapons against the Iraqi people and the Iranian army."

Moderate Muslim leaders reiterated their opposition to military action. Ahmad Syafii Maarif, chairman of Indonesia's second largest Muslim organisation, Muhammadiyah, said an attack on Iraq to oust President Saddam would be tantamount to "state terrorism".