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Father John Mackie, parish priest at St Anne's RC Church in Crumpsall, offered prayers for the dead and bereaved in the atrocities against New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

But the priest, in carefully measured tones, also prayed that the world's leaders would react with 'reason' and recognise their duty not to add to the suffering of the poor in the developing world.

Fr Mackie made his plea during morning Mass on Sunday after it was revealed that the UN had suspended food aid to refugees of decades of war and oppression in Afghanistan.

Aid workers in the region have revealed that there is just a month's worth of supplies of food available to Afghans who have fled the war with the former Soviet Republic and the strictures of the Taliban regime.

As winter approaches, aid workers say there is a window of only weeks to deliver food and essential medical supplies to children and their families who are already weakened by years of malnutrition.

Fr Mackie's prayers came as Muslims across Cheetham and Crumpsall condemned the attack on the US in the face of violence against Asian communities elsewhere in Britain.

Fund-raising is being organised in support of the families of the victims of the attack as part of a multi-cultural response from Cheetham and Crumpsall to the attack.