Taliban finds few Muslim friends
Middle East By Robert Fisk in Beirut
18 September 2001
They have been lining up in their condemnation.
Mullahs, sheikhs and
sayeds, from Beirut to Tehran, are criticising last
week's assault on the United
States, sending condolences and sympathy and ? by
their actions ?
distancing themselves from the atrocity that millions
of Arab Muslims
watched live on television.
There is genuine outrage, true, but it would be as
well to place it in context.
Because the Taliban, the shield of Osama bin Laden,
has almost as many
enemies in the Middle East as it has in America.
For two consecutive days, Sayed Mohamed Hussein
Fadlallah, the spiritual
guide to the Hizbollah guerrilla movement ? the group
that reinvented the art
of suicide bombing against the Israeli occupation
army in Lebanon and
which Washington still blames for the kidnapping of
Americans in Beirut in
the 1980s ? has been excoriating those responsible.
"No religion justifies such an action," the Shia
Muslim cleric announced in
Beirut. "It is not permissible to use innocent and
peaceful civilians as a card
to change a specific policy." Muslims and Islamists
opposed American policy
in the region ? "which is totally biased in favour of
the Zionist enemy" ? but
they wanted to be friends with the American people,
the cleric said.
Sheikh Abdul-Amir Qabalan, the vice-president of the
Higher Shia Muslim
Council in Lebanon, insisted Islam was "a religion of
justice and equality and
it condemns any attack on civilians and the
innocent".
Now this makes interesting reading. No such
condemnations followed the
Palestinian suicide bombings that killed 15
civilians, including six children,
in a Jerusalem pizzeria in August or the suicide
bombing that slaughtered 21
Israeli teenagers in Tel Aviv. Hizbollah's satellite
groups were held
responsible for the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in
Beirut in which more
than 50 Lebanese civilians were killed.
In Iran, whose boy soldiers perfected suicide attacks
on the Iraqi army in the
1980-88 war and whose government has always supported
Palestinian suicide
bombers, President Mohammad Khatami and his
conservative opponents
condemned totally the New York and Washington
bombings. This is not surprising.
For in Tehran the rulers of Afghanistan have been
called the "black Taliban"
for years, long before the US identified them as Mr
bin Laden's protectors.
The Iranians, and, by extension, their Hizbollah
protégés, have long regarded
the Taliban's "Wahabi" Sunni Muslim leaders as
obscurantists and potential
"terrorists". At least two million Afghan refugees
are living in great poverty in eastern
Iran, many of whom would have stayed at home were it
not for the Taliban's
rule and the mass starvation that the Taliban has
done little to alleviate. Iran
has now closed its border with Afghanistan to prevent
a further exodus of
refugees and America has said that it would
"consider" inviting Iran to join a
coalition against "world terrorism". Iran will most
certainly decline. The Saudis, of course, can scarcely
do anything but join in the chorus of
condemnation. They helped to create the Taliban, to
legitimise its presence
in Afghanistan and to fund and arm the so-called
students who destroyed
most of the rival mujahedin groups who had been
pillaging Kabul and other
great Afghan cities in the years that followed the
Soviet military withdrawal.
Mr bin Laden is himself a Saudi ? though one
officially deprived of his
citizenship ? and, as is becoming clearer, some of
the hijackers were Saudi
citizens.In Egypt, Sunni Muslim clerics added their
own condemnation, although
President Mubarak has been one of the few Middle
Eastern leaders to warn of
the consequences of indiscriminate American
retaliation. He it was who
warned just two short weeks ago that, unless a peace
was restored, he feared
there would be "an explosion outside the region".
Back in Lebanon, the Hizbollah itself issued a crafty
statement yesterday,
regretting the loss of innocent lives in America but
warning Washington not to
take advantage of the atrocities "to practise all
sorts of aggression and
terrorism under the pretext of fighting aggression
and terrorism".
Also from the Middle East section
____________________________________________________________
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Middle East By Robert Fisk in Beirut
18 September 2001
They have been lining up in their condemnation.
Mullahs, sheikhs and
sayeds, from Beirut to Tehran, are criticising last
week's assault on the United
States, sending condolences and sympathy and ? by
their actions ?
distancing themselves from the atrocity that millions
of Arab Muslims
watched live on television.
There is genuine outrage, true, but it would be as
well to place it in context.
Because the Taliban, the shield of Osama bin Laden,
has almost as many
enemies in the Middle East as it has in America.
For two consecutive days, Sayed Mohamed Hussein
Fadlallah, the spiritual
guide to the Hizbollah guerrilla movement ? the group
that reinvented the art
of suicide bombing against the Israeli occupation
army in Lebanon and
which Washington still blames for the kidnapping of
Americans in Beirut in
the 1980s ? has been excoriating those responsible.
"No religion justifies such an action," the Shia
Muslim cleric announced in
Beirut. "It is not permissible to use innocent and
peaceful civilians as a card
to change a specific policy." Muslims and Islamists
opposed American policy
in the region ? "which is totally biased in favour of
the Zionist enemy" ? but
they wanted to be friends with the American people,
the cleric said.
Sheikh Abdul-Amir Qabalan, the vice-president of the
Higher Shia Muslim
Council in Lebanon, insisted Islam was "a religion of
justice and equality and
it condemns any attack on civilians and the
innocent".
Now this makes interesting reading. No such
condemnations followed the
Palestinian suicide bombings that killed 15
civilians, including six children,
in a Jerusalem pizzeria in August or the suicide
bombing that slaughtered 21
Israeli teenagers in Tel Aviv. Hizbollah's satellite
groups were held
responsible for the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in
Beirut in which more
than 50 Lebanese civilians were killed.
In Iran, whose boy soldiers perfected suicide attacks
on the Iraqi army in the
1980-88 war and whose government has always supported
Palestinian suicide
bombers, President Mohammad Khatami and his
conservative opponents
condemned totally the New York and Washington
bombings. This is not surprising.
For in Tehran the rulers of Afghanistan have been
called the "black Taliban"
for years, long before the US identified them as Mr
bin Laden's protectors.
The Iranians, and, by extension, their Hizbollah
protégés, have long regarded
the Taliban's "Wahabi" Sunni Muslim leaders as
obscurantists and potential
"terrorists". At least two million Afghan refugees
are living in great poverty in eastern
Iran, many of whom would have stayed at home were it
not for the Taliban's
rule and the mass starvation that the Taliban has
done little to alleviate. Iran
has now closed its border with Afghanistan to prevent
a further exodus of
refugees and America has said that it would
"consider" inviting Iran to join a
coalition against "world terrorism". Iran will most
certainly decline. The Saudis, of course, can scarcely
do anything but join in the chorus of
condemnation. They helped to create the Taliban, to
legitimise its presence
in Afghanistan and to fund and arm the so-called
students who destroyed
most of the rival mujahedin groups who had been
pillaging Kabul and other
great Afghan cities in the years that followed the
Soviet military withdrawal.
Mr bin Laden is himself a Saudi ? though one
officially deprived of his
citizenship ? and, as is becoming clearer, some of
the hijackers were Saudi
citizens.In Egypt, Sunni Muslim clerics added their
own condemnation, although
President Mubarak has been one of the few Middle
Eastern leaders to warn of
the consequences of indiscriminate American
retaliation. He it was who
warned just two short weeks ago that, unless a peace
was restored, he feared
there would be "an explosion outside the region".
Back in Lebanon, the Hizbollah itself issued a crafty
statement yesterday,
regretting the loss of innocent lives in America but
warning Washington not to
take advantage of the atrocities "to practise all
sorts of aggression and
terrorism under the pretext of fighting aggression
and terrorism".
Also from the Middle East section
____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com