CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expressed "profound grief" on Wednesday over the "cowardly, murderous" terror attacks on the United States and offered help in the form of oil supplies, rescue teams and blood products.
Chavez, a strident critic of U.S. intervention in South America who turned away U.S. military aid during calamitous 1999 mudslides, added his voice to calls for an international pact to fight terrorism in the aftermath of Tuesday's bloody assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"Our deepest condolences go the people of the United States and the U.S. government and especially to the families of the thousands of victims of these abominable acts," the leftist leader said during a live national address in which he observed a moment of silence.
U.S. government officials estimated the death toll could run to thousands of people after hijackers slammed commercial aircraft into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, demolishing its twin towers, in the worst attack on the country since Pearl Harbor.
"It is necessary for us all to reach agreement to fight against terrorism so these crimes do not go unpunished," said the former paratrooper, who rose to fame in a failed 1992 military coup.
Chavez said his oil-rich nation would support a U.N. initiative to have Sept. 11 declared International Anti-terrorism Day.
Venezuela, one of the leading providers of gasoline to the United States, will do everything possible to ensure that fuel supplies in the world's largest economy remain normal, the president said.
Flanked by the Venezuelan flag and a portrait of 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar, a somber Chavez intoned Psalm 91 "to implore divine protection" for the victims of Tuesday's attacks and their families and even, "as a good Catholic," for the assassins themselves.
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