But the thousands who died in New York and Washington, and the hundreds more who lost their lives trying to save them, do not make foreign policy. They were not "collateral damage" -- no more than the Iraqi children killed by US fighter planes, the federal employees who died in Oklahoma City, the civilians offered up on every altar built to honour Mars. Nor should millions of innocent Arabs and Muslims the world over be forced to assuage the US government's thirst for revenge and eagerness to deploy its military power yet again. It is easy to find a scapegoat; more difficult, and more necessary, is to ask: why?

'Unbelievably horrifying'
Within hours of the attacks on key commercial and state targets in New York and Washington, President Hosni Mubarak held an emergency meeting with part of his cabinet Tuesday evening to review the developments and their implications for the region, reports Nevine Khalil

Condemning aggression
"Egyptians' feelings about the incident are deeply contradictory," said Mosbah Qutb, senior member of the leftist Tagammu Party, reflecting on popular sentiments about the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as Shaden Shehab and Fatemah Farag report.