Islamic meet opens with call for US restraint

DOHA, Oct 10 (Reuters) The head of the worlds largest Islamic organisation today condemned the September 11 attacks on the United States but said any western reprisals should not hurt innocent civilians.

"We assert our utter rejection of these attacks and assert that confronting them must not touch innocent civilians and must not extend beyond those who carried out those attacks," the emir of Qatar, current chairman of the organisation of the Islamic Conference (ICO), told governments representing over one billion Muslims.

The emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, was opening a one-day emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the 56-nation grouping called by iran to discuss the crisis over the attacks on New York and Washington that cost up to 5,600 lives.