Dubai's police chief yesterday surprised an international security forum by accusing the US of increasing support for Al Qaeda and its allies by demonising Muslims.

'We the Arabs are charged with terrorism no matter how much we try to reassure them (the Americans),' Dubai police chief Lieutenant-General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told the Middle East: Homeland and Global Security Forum at the Ritz-Carlton Bahrain Hotel and Spa.

Tamim's comments shocked the audience of past and present ministers, ambassadors and other officials from the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the US, a report in the Gulf Daily News, our sister newspaper said.

He complained of the change in the US attitude to Arabs since the September 11 attacks which, together with the invasion of Iraq and a perceived 'war of civilisations' with the West, he said, had made Muslims more radical.

The police chief said the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington were 'a big crime that could not go unpunished' but did not justify the current treatment of Arabs nor the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Tamim alleged that the US had played a key role in the creation of the Al Qaeda network and said the US presence in Iraq was 'a provocation to billions of Muslims.'

'How can an Arab accept a foreigner who walks in his streets carrying a weapon,' Tamim told the global security forum, where the participants included former British home secretary Michael Howard and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi.

Referring to the alleged US role in once helping Osama bin Laden's activities when he was with the mujahideen fighting the Soviet presence in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Tamim said 'you created the Satan' and Western experts had taught the Al Qaeda forerunners 'how to make and explode bombs'.

His speech was applauded by Middle East participants in the audience but surprised Western observers, the report said.