WASHINGTON Ñ The United States believes the Muslim world has reached a strategic juncture that could result in a Middle East war.

Arab nations have been swept by anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli demonstrations over the past two weeks, Middle East Newsline reported. Demonstrators marched in the streets of Amman, Beirut, Cairo and Gulf Arab capitals expressing support for Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden.

"The Muslim world is under increased pressure and may be at a strategic crossroads, as populations and leaders sort through competing visions of what it means to be a Muslim state," Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. "Longstanding issues Ñ resentment toward the U.S. and the West, unfavorable demographic and economic conditions, efforts to strike a balance between modernization and respect for traditional values Ñ are exacerbated by the global war on terrorism.

These pressures will be most acute in moderate Arab states and Indonesia."

Wilson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that geostrategic relationships have been shifting since September. He cited ties between the major powers as well as the Israeli-Palestinian war.

The defense intelligence chief warned of escalating violence in the Middle East. Wilson said the Israeli-PA conflict would result in increasing pressure on Arab allies of the United States in what could spark a regional war.

"The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is intensifying and both sides increasingly operate from a zero-sum perspective," Wilson said. "The pressure on moderate Arab governments is high. The situation could escalate rapidly, risking instability within these states and/or a wider regional war."

U.S. officials said Muslim countries Ñ particularly those aligned with the United States Ñ are coming under increasing pressure amid such emerging trends as overpopulation, poverty and globalization. They said these trends will increase resentment of the West in the aftermath of the suicide attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

In contrast, Israel's latest military intelligence assessment has determined that the prospect of a Middle East war remains low during 2002. The report asserts that such countries as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Syria are resisting pressure to join the Palestinian war against Israel.

Wilson also warned of what he termed a major terrorist attack against U.S. interests amid the war in Afghanistan. Such an attack, he said, is designed to produce mass casualties, severe infrastructure and economic damage.

"As was vividly displayed on 11 September, terrorism remains the most significant asymmetric threat to U.S. interests at home and abroad," Wilson said. "I am most concerned about Islamic extremist organizations, in the Middle East, and throughout the world. Other groups with varying causes Ñ nationalistic, leftist, ethnic or religious Ñ will continue to pose a lesser threat."

CIA George Tenet also testified in front of the Senate committee and raised the prospect of cooperation between Iraq and Bin Laden. Tenet warned that such Palestinian groups as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have escalated attacks against Israel and could eventually target the United States.

"If these groups feel that U.S. actions are threatening their existence, they may begin targeting Americans directly," Tenet said.

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