- Title: VARIOUS: ARAB LEADERS CONDEMN TERRORIST ATTACKS ON THE USA
- Date: 17th September 2001
- Summary: (W5) MANAMA, BAHRAIN (SEPTEMBER 17, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV EXTERIOR OF CROWN PRINCE SHEIKH SALMAN'S PALACE 0.13 2. MV/SV SALMAN WITH REPORTERS 0.25 3. SCU SOUNDBITE (English) CROWN PRINCE SHEIKH SALMAN SAYING: "I personally do not believe that this was linked directly to the Intifada in the occupied territories, this took two y
- Embargoed: 2nd October 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: MANAMA, BAHRAIN/ BAGHDAD, IRAQ/ROAD TO SABRA AND SHATILA CAMP AND BEIRUT, LEBANON/ CAIRO, EGYPT
- City:
- Country: Lebanon Egypt Iraq Bahrain
- Reuters ID: LVA3XSKOA9BLHE0ZFURIUAHG7JMU
- Story Text: Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman has called on
Islamic leaders to unite against last week's terror attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States.
And a leading Muslim cleric in Cairo has defended
Palestinian rights to defend themselves while condemning the
terrorist attacks on the U.S..
Iraq however, has suggested that Washington needs to
reconsider American foreign policy if further aggression
against it is to be avoided.
The terror attack on America was the opening shot in a
war against modernity in which the Arab world and Islam will
line up on the side of civilised values, the Crown Prince of
Bahrain said on Monday (September 17).
In an unconditional condemnation of the mass murder,
Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa told a news conference
there must be no misinterpretation of its underlying motives,
because it had placed Islam at a crossroads.
The Crown Prince attempted to quash impressions that the
attack was linked directly to the year-old Intifada uprising
against the Israeli occupation of Palestine saying; "I
personally do not believe that this was linked directly to the
Intifada in the occupied territories, this took two years to
plan. So I do believe however it is in opposition to the peace
process as a whole."
He believes it is a defining moment for Muslim followers:
"Islam is not the narrow interpretation of Osama bin Laden.
The fundamental ethos behind his interpretation seems to be
the Jihad, and I will not have a great religion reduced to
such a narrow viewpoint."
"I think they have made a large miscalculation... It won't
be a clash of civilisations. It will be a clash between the
civilised world that includes; Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Hindus, Buddhists and a very small group of very radical and
unethical people... So I totally cannot stand by that. This is
no civilisation of mine that conducted this heinous act," the
Crown Prince said.
Sheikh Salman said Bahrain, which has hosted a major U.S.
naval base since 1949, has as yet had no requests from the
U.S. for military cooperation. If it came to that he says he's
sure that the Gulf states will be consulted in advance.
Meanwhile Iraq's most influential newspaper said on Monday
it expected the country to be a target of U.S. retaliation
after last week's attacks in New York and Washington.
"We do not rule out that we are in the forefront of
countries that America wants to attack," said Babel, the
newspaper of President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday.
Iraq is on a U.S. State Department list of "state sponsors
of terrorism".
Babel said that U.S. concentration on Afghanistan as the
primary focus of any revenge strike could be a cover for a
plan to hit other countries.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Washington
will go after countries that harbour "terrorists and their
organisations" in retaliation for the attacks on New York and
Washington, which left more than 5,000 dead and missing.
Meanwhile Iraq has urged Washington to reconsider its
foreign policy in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. cities
and said the terror was a consequence of American injustice.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Dr. Naji Sabri advised America to
adopt a reasonable way rather than using force in retaliating
for the recent attacks on the two World Trade towers and
Pentagon.
"It is hoped around the world that U.S. officials and U.S.
politicians will think this over... Why do they face this
insecure position all over the globe?.. Look to their
embassies wherever they go... All over the world their (U.S.)
embassies are bastions, are military camps and look what
happened to them now. We hope and I think many people around
the globe hope that American officials try to reassess their
policy and try to think quietly and in a reasonable manner to
assess why this happened to them... Why this happen to them
and on this large scale... Why this did not happen to other
nations," Dr. Sabri told Reuters.
The Iraqi Minister argued that if the American officials
dealt with other nations in a reasonable way, they and other
nations would live in stability and security.
Sabri's comments follow those by Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein at the weekend when he advised the U.S. to use wisdom,
and not force.
The United States has vowed to punish the perpetrators of
last week's terror attacks on New York and Washington and all
those who protect them and is forging an international
coalition for a new war against "terrorists".
Washington last formed such a coalition for the 1991 Gulf
War, which ousted Iraqi invaders from Kuwait. The U.S.-led
coalition bombed Iraq heavily during the 1991 War. Iraqi
targets still come under air attack by Western planes policing
two "no fly" zones in the north and south of the country.
Iraq says that more than 400 civilians were killed in
Al-Amiriya shelter during the Gulf War.
The country has been struggling under stringent sanctions
since then. Iraqi's say 11-years of sanctions have restricted
medical supplies and put huge strains on health care.
In Baghdad and in Beirut hundreds of Palestinian, Iraqi
and Lebanese demonstrators marched to mark the slaughter of
hundreds of Palestinian refugees by pro-Israeli Lebanese
militiamen during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
In Baghdad, the demonstrators chanted slogans condemning
Israel and America for backing the occupation. They chanted
slogans hostile to Israel, America, and Britain as they also
chanted slogans, expressing love for President Saddam Hussein.
While near Beirut demonstrators of various Palestinian
factions and Lebanon's Hizbollah group, including women and
children, headed to the makeshift cemetery at Sabra and
Shatila camp--where the massacre took place.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is facing lawsuits in
Belgium for war crimes for the massacres between September 16
and 18 in 1982 by Lebanese Christian militias of more than
1,000 Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila camps,
south of Beirut.
An Israeli commission held Sharon, who was then Israeli
defence minister, indirectly and personally responsible for
the massacres, forcing him to resign.
In Cairo leading Muslim cleric, the Grand Sheikh of Al
Azhar Mohamed Sayed Tantawi said that muslims had a right to
defend themselves when threatened but that Islam does not
condone terrorism:
"We keep all our solidarity with our Palestinian brothers
and sisters who would defend their sacred places, their home,
their land, their human dignity. We are with them because they
are right because they defend that which is necessary to be
defended. But as for terrorism we fight and we are against
terrorism because it is against human beings," he said.
Dr. Tantawi said that it is the right of any nation or any
country to defend against those who aggress against it and
that the Islamic Law says the punishment must take place on
the one who commits such crimes. "Such criminals should be
punished," he said but added that, "the punishment should not
be done unless there is enough evidence that this criminal..
he himself committed this crime."
President George W. Bush, declaring the United States was
"at war", said on Saturday Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama
bin Laden, long accused of waging an anti-American campaign
from Afghanistan, was "a prime suspect" in Tuesday's attacks.
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