From: Miroslav Antic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- Hamas Leader: US Should Reevaluate http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-attacks-hamas0928sep 28.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines By DONNA ABU-NASR Associated Press Writer September 28, 2001, 2:09 PM EDT DAMASCUS, Syria -- Instead of spreading its military might around the world to exact revenge for the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States should ask itself a simple question: "Why this tremendous animosity toward America?" So says Moussa Abu Marzouk, a prominent leader of the militant Islamic Hamas group -- which the U.S. State Department has classified a terrorist organization -- who served two years in a New York jail after his name appeared on a list of people suspected of terrorist activity. Hamas and its smaller sister, Islamic Jihad, were not on the list of terrorist groups whose assets the United States is freezing in the wake of the attacks. But the U.S. Treasury Department has frozen two bank accounts of an Internet company based in Dallas because it received an investment in 1993 from Nadia Elashi Marzouk, the Hamas leader's wife. Abu Marzouk was placed on a Treasury Department list of terrorists in 1995, allowing the government to seize his U.S. assets. And, a congressional report on terrorism released a day before the Sept. 11 attacks lists the terror activities of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad as "very high." Both groups have sent suicide bombers to blow up Israeli markets, restaurants, discos and train stations during the one-year Palestinian intefadeh. Washington has condemned the attacks, in which more than 50 Israelis and several foreigners, including an American, have been killed. Abu Marzouk said no parallels should be drawn between the conflict in the Middle East and the suicide attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that killed thousands of people. The latter, he said, were a direct outcome of resentment toward America; the former, he called the struggle of a people against occupation. "A distinction should be made," Abu Marzouk said in an interview Sunday with The Associated at Hamas' office in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. Like other Palestinian and Arab groups, Hamas has directed its anger not only against Israel, but also against the United States, seen in the Arab world as biased in Israel's favor. But its anti-U.S. outrage has been limited to rhetoric not attacks, a policy, Abu Marzouk said Hamas is not deviating from. "Hamas is not concerned with a confrontation with any other party, even one that aids Israel," Abu Marzouk said, adding that his group condemns the U.S. attacks. "The targeting of civilians irrespective of their nationalities is unacceptable, and it's a practice that should be abolished from this world," he said. Asked how he could reconcile those words with Hamas' suicide attacks that killed and injured Israeli civilians, Abu Marzouk said his group's actions were justified because they came in response to Israeli bombings that killed Palestinian noncombatants. "They were reciprocal acts and a natural reaction to what's being done to the Palestinians," he said. In that case, how would Hamas respond to President Bush's call to join the anti-terror campaign or else be considered a terrorist? "We are with neither side," Abu Marzouk said. "It's the arrogance of power when the United States determines whether you should be with it or with terrorism." "We are against terrorism," he added. "We are the victims of American-backed terrorism." Abu Marzouk, who lived intermittently in the United States until his deportation in 1997, has refused to talk about the U.S. Treasury Department's action. At least four of his six children are American citizens. His wife won a green card in an immigration lottery in Louisiana in 1990 and through it obtained one for her husband. It's not clear whether he has given back his green card. Abu Marzouk was detained in July 1995 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. His name was on an Immigration and Nationalization Service watch list of people suspected of involvement in terrorist activity. Israel sought to extradite him to try him for organizing suicide attacks, a charge he has denied. When Israel withdrew its extradition request, a deal was worked out for Abu Marzouk to be expelled to Jordan for violating immigration laws. Abu Marzouk said this should be a period of introspection for Americans and not a time for deploying troops and high-tech weapons. "America should think about the hatred that people feel for it," he said. Why is America resented? Abu Marzouk points to it's support for Israel. "When people watch the killings of Palestinians with American weapons, American support and American cover, what can you expect?" He also decries U.S. sanctions against Iraq and Libya. "This is a weapon that punished the masses not the governments," Abu Marzouk said. Copyright C 2001, The Associated Press ===================== Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad Accuse US http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-attacks-lebanese-mil itan ts0928sep28.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines By CHRIS TOMLINSON Associated Press Writer September 28, 2001, 7:15 PM EDT BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The leaders of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, militant Islamic groups labeled terrorist organizations by the United States, accused Washington on Friday of launching a war on Muslim nations in retaliation for terror attacks at home. At a rally marking the first anniversary of the latest Palestinian uprising against neighboring Israel, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, said his group would "consider any attack on Afghanistan to be a blatant aggression against innocent Muslim people, and it would be condemned and rejected by all the people in the Arab and Muslim world." The United States is believed preparing military action in Afghanistan in an attempt to capture suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and to wipe out his training camps. His al-Qaeda group is blamed for the terror attacks Sept. 11 on New York and the Pentagon. However, the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group did not threaten to take military action if the United States launches attacks on Afghanistan and has voiced regret over the loss of life in the United States. More than 50,000 people, many waving Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, attended the rally in south Beirut late Friday. The meeting began with video clips of Israeli-Palestinian fighting and a band playing military songs, including one with the refrain "Death to Israel." America's war on terrorism "is a pretext to dominate the world and is also a pretext for the presence of its fleets and military bases in Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Gulf and the Mediterranean for the sake of Israel," the bearded Nasrallah said. Nasrallah was joined by Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group that has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Israel. Shalah warned that Israel would take advantage of the terror attacks to encourage the United States to launch a war on all Muslim nations. He also rejected Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's call to support the U.S. war on global terrorism. While both Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are listed as terrorist organizations by the United States, they were not included on a short list of groups President Bush linked to bin Laden. Copyright C 2001, The Associated Press ________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
