July 25, 2005  Monday  Jumadi-us-Sani 17, 1426

Arab press asks Muslims to unite against terrorists

DUBAI, July 24: The world’s Muslims were urged on Sunday to unite against 
terrorists after the bombings in Egypt’s top tourist resort, roundly 
condemned in the Arab press as barbaric attacks that do nothing to serve 
their cause.

Most of the 88 people killed when bombers unleashed carnage in the popular 
Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh were Egyptian Muslims, with some nine 
foreigners reported among the dead.

“The deadly bomb blasts in Sharm el-Sheikh are another despicable act of 
faithless and cowardly people,” charged the English-language Jordan Times.

The attacks were claimed in an Internet statement by an Al Qaeda-linked 
group which said it was a response to “the global evil powers which are 
spilling the blood of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya.”

But Jordan’s independent newspaper Al Ghad said: “Killing innocent people in 
Sharm el-Sheikh will not contribute to the liberation of Palestine, and the 
killing of innocent Iraqis will not accelerate the American withdrawal.”

Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Lebanese authority in Shia Islam, 
published a fatwa, saying: “We forbid barbaric acts against innocents who 
have nothing to do with the political demands of terrorists.”

“These are not martyr operations but barbaric suicide attacks and the 
culprits deserve only God’s punishment,” he said, urging the world’s Muslims 
to take a united stand against terrorism.

Egypt’s independent daily Al-Masri Al Yom called for a war against “Islamist 
Salafist ideas,” referring to the conservative school of Sunni Islam 
prevalent in Saudi Arabia more commonly known as Wahhabism.

“It is impossible to face down the globalisation of terrorism without 
eradicating the ideology on which it rests,” said a front-page editorial.

Under the provocative headline “Don’t wage war against terrorists”, the 
article argued that “the perpetrators of the heinous Sharm el-Sheikh 
bombings, just like all of us, are victims of the Salafi ideology.”

“We all deserve what happened in Sharm el-Sheikh because we remained silent 
when the Wahhabi school of thought started creeping into Egypt,” it said.

Thousands of Egyptians went to the Gulf during the oil boom years of the 
1970s, many returning as wealthy citizens and with Saudi’s conservative way 
of thinking.

The Gulf press also denounced the attacks, which added to global terror 
fears after the strikes on London’s underground system and buses on July 7 
that left 56 people dead including the bombers.

“This is terrorism and we are the victims. The murderer is one. He carries a 
black passport and a black ideology, and victims carry one nationality — 
peaceful innocent people who suddenly found themselves a fuel for evil 
plots,” Kuwait’s Al-Rai Al-Aam wrote.

The Al-Ittihad newspaper in the United Arab Emirates challenged those who 
sought to find excuses for such attacks.

“More than half of the victims were Egyptian Muslims, with some Arabs and 
very few foreigners, so who was specifically targeted and what issues are 
they (the bombers) defending?” the Abu Dhabi-based daily said.

“Religious institutions in the Islamic world should move swiftly to rebut 
the lies and dispel the darkness and ignorance that control the mentality of 
the culprits.”

The Saudi Gazette said the bombers were aiming to disrupt Egypt’s first 
contested presidential election in September and wreak havoc in the economy 
of the most populous country in the Arab world.

“The purpose of these terrorist attacks is fairly evident. Egypt is 
preparing to hold its first multi-candidate presidential elections in 
September,” the English-language daily said.

“Disrupting the Egyptian economy is obviously one way of fomenting unrest 
among those already on the financial margins,” it added.

Jordan’s independent Al-Arab Al-Yom said the attacks reflected a war pitting 
US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair against 
top terrorist Osama bin Laden and his top Iraq front man Abu Musab 
al-Zarqawi.

“It is a war between mad people and ghosts,” it said.—AFP

http://www.dawn.com/2005/07/25/int1.htm




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