Fears for the stability of governments, regional security and the risk of increased terrorism rank high alongside economic worries in a number of nations.

Australia's determination to send troops into a US-led war is expected to spark widespread protests and could do long-term political damage to conservative Prime Minister John Howard.

More than 400,000 demonstrators turned out last month to condemn Howard's pro-US Iraq policy in the biggest protests the nation has seen since the Vietnam war, and similar protests are already being organised for the day war erupts.

Recent opinion polls have for the first time since Howard took office shown voters favoring the opposition Labor Party at the national level. Surveys show up to 70 percent of the public opposed to his stance on Iraq.

Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is seen as certain to be blamed for any stockmarket debacle following a US-led attack on Iraq, which he does not oppose despite growing public anti-war sentiment.

There are also fears in Tokyo that North Korea would step up its military threat with a missile test-launch while US attention is diverted to the Middle East, another factor which could send Japanese share prices to new 20-year lows.

A telephone poll conducted by the Kyodo news agency found 79 percent of respondents were opposed to a US-led attack on Iraq.

Once war starts, Koizumi's approval rating, which slipped below 50 percent as he failed to deliver on economic reforms, will "sag to a fatally low rate without doubt," the popular daily Tokyo Shimbun commented Monday.

Muslim countries in the region fear that war in Iraq will stoke the fires of Islamic extremism.

Malaysia's Acting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who takes over leadership of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference in October, warned in an interview with AFP that war would "put the governments of Islamic countries under very severe strain."

"The militants and terrorists would obviously want to exploit the situation and even the moderate Muslims will be very angry," he said.

In Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf is already under fire for his cooperation with the United States in its military campaign in Afghanistan and the hunt for al-Qaeda fugitives, newly powerful Islamist parties are portraying an invasion of Iraq as an attack on the Muslim world.

A war is expected to heighten the already strong anti-US sentiment demonstrated in two of the largest protest rallies ever held this month, drawing around 100,000 in Karachi and 200,000 in Rawalpindi.

"We could possibly see a rise in terrorist attacks on Western targets," analyst Aqil Shah said.

Neighbouring Afghanistan is concerned that war in Iraq will deflect attention from its own war-affected plight and prompt a backlash by Islamic extremists.

President Hamid Karzai said he had been assured of Washington's continued commitment to Afghanistan, but international peacekeepers warn war could be a trigger for violence in a country where al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists are still a problem.

In the world's most populous Islamic country, Indonesia, police have made plans to control protesters, prevent Westerners from being targeted, secure businesses and foil any terrorist attacks, the authorities say.

Industry and Trade Minister Rini Suwandi said considering the moderate nature of Islam practised in Indonesia, the government was confident the situation would not get out of control. "But we're preparing," she said.

The Indonesian island of Bali was the scene last October of the biggest terror attack in the world after the September 11 suicide hijackings in the United States, with Western tourists targeted in bombings which killed 202 people, and analysts say an Iraq war could provoke more atrocities.

Robert Broadfoot of the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Consultancy said new attacks in the region as soon as war begins were "entirely possible", particularly on a relatively small scale.

Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, agreed, saying the arrests of several leaders of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah in the wake of the Bali bombing had reduced the organisation's capacity for a big attack at this stage.

For many countries which rely heavily on oil imports, such as India, the fallout is more likely to be on the economic rather than the political front, analysts say.

However, anti-US protests have been growing in size and number in India in recent weeks and are expected to become more vociferous.

And in a significant change from the 1991 Gulf War, India on Sunday ruled out allowing refuelling facilities for US or allied warplanes on its territory.

In China, while the foreign ministry has declined to speculate how an Iraq war would affect US ties, the crisis appears to have fueled lingering anti-American sentiment among a public which believes the US has ulterior motives and really wants Iraq's oil.

The threat of war has once again underlined China's own dependence on the Middle East, the source of 60 percent of its oil imports.

South Korea fears that the economic impact of war could squeeze an economy that is already slowing down, with some analysts speculating that it is in for a repeat of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis which bought the economy to its knees.

The government predicts that the economy will grow this year within a five-seven point spread, but the Korea Economic Research Institute said recently it may grow as little as 1.4 percent as consumer sentiment is sapped by Iraq war concerns and the ongoing North Korea nuclear crisis.

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo on Monday rejected suggestions that her country could be the worst loser in Southeast Asia in case of war in Iraq.

Dismissing predictions based on the Philippines' dependence on Middle East oil and the US market, terrorist threats, and the 1.5 million jobs of Filipino contract workers in the Mideast, she said: "The scenarios used are dated, they are not applicable.

"Our country is ready and resilient, with good economic fundamentals. Whatever effects a war will have on us, these will be short term in duration."

Other leaders may not share Arroyo's confidence, but they will no doubt hope she is right.

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