'US has promised no Arab country will be attacked'

“The United States is concentrating on Osama Ben Laden and does not expect to enlarge the confrontation. We have obtained assurances on this matter. (The US) does not foresee a strike against any country in the region,” Maher told the government Al Ahram daily from Washington.

Maher was in the US capital for meetings earlier this week with officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The United States has threatened to strike any countries that harbour terrorists linked to the attacks. Afghanistan — which is Islamic but not Arab — is considered to be the primary likely target for protecting the alleged mastermind of the terror, Ben Laden.

Asked whether this included possible US strikes against fellow Arab country Iraq, Maher said that “American officials themselves said that there was no proof” to implicate Baghdad in the terrorist attacks on their country.

He also reaffirmed that Cairo was prepared to assist the fight against terrorism but not participate in a US-led military campaign. Washington has lobbied Egypt — a major Arab and Muslim country — to help build its world coalition against terror.

“Every party contributes to the fight against terrorism in its own way, and we have a tremendous amount of information on terrorist elements that have been active in Egypt,” he said, adding that the information “was helping the investigations” into the attacks on the United States.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been reluctant to commit his country to the US anti-terror coalition being forged by US President George W. Bush fearing it could result in a backlash from Muslims who might see it as anti-Islamic or anti-Arab.

Mubarak, whose country emerged from a spiral of Islamic militant violence in the late 1990s, has also been trying for more than a decade to persuade the world community to organise an international conference on terrorism.