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Arab
Governments Turn A "Deaf" Ear
CAIRO, Oct 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Despite their swift condemnation of the September 11 attacks on the U.S., most Arab governments refrained from criticizing the U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan on Sunday, news agencies reported.
Two days ahead of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) foreign ministers' meeting in Doha, Arab governments have still not completely digested the news, and limited itself to sporadic comments of condemnation and 'expressing worries' over the attacks.
In Egypt, broadcast media interrupted regular evening programs Sunday to broadcast factual reports on the air strikes, the BBC's monitoring service reported, and radio and television stations buttressed the news with interviews with military and political analysts. But no official reaction was reported Sunday.
News agencies reported that Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu-al-Raghib and his Syrian counterpart Muhammad Mustafa Miru met on economic and cultural cooperation, but made no reference to the U.S. attacks.
But, Iraq late Sunday night called the U.S. and British retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan aggressive acts that violate international law and said such moves would not bring peace and stability to the world, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
A statement by a special meeting of the Iraqi leadership chaired by President Saddam Hussein, said, "Today the United States committed an act against a country and a nation who are among the world's poorest...This is not only because such an act was launched by America against a Muslim country and people, but also because it is an aggressive act perpetrated outside of international law."
The statement also said the evidence against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden, accused by the U.S. as being the mastermind behind the attacks on the U.S. - an accusation he "categorically" denied - has only been shared with certain countries.
The Iraqi leadership also blamed U.S. foreign policy for creating terrorism, "By its aggressiveness and aggressions throughout fifty years, the U.S. has created terrorism against others and against itself as well."
"Security, peace and stability can only be achieved if the aggressors end their aggressiveness and adopt a fair attitude toward the victims of their aggressions including at the forefront, the Palestinian people," the statement added.
Early Monday, the Moroccan foreign ministry issued a statement saying that military strikes against Afghanistan should be "wise and measured", Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The kingdom of Morocco expresses its wish for the operation in progress to be wise and measured," the foreign ministry said in a statement released overnight.
"To be effective, Morocco considers that the operations should be targeted and carried out in a manner which spares innocent lives," the statement read.
Jordan's key Islamic opposition party on Monday condemned the United States' "dirty war" on Afghanistan, which it said was aimed at exterminating a people without resources.
"This is a dirty war of extermination against a primitive Muslim people who have no resources and who cannot face up to the destructive American war machine," the secretary general of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) told AFP.
"We always denounce terrorism, under all its forms, terrorism by individuals, organizations or state terrorism," Abdel Latif Arabiyat said, adding that U.S. attacks launched Sunday on Afghanistan belonged to the latter.
"What the United States is now launching represents the highest level of state terrorism and targets innocents, like Israel against the Palestinians," Arabiyat said.
"With this war, the United States is seeking to intimidate and bring to submission all the Arab and Muslim people," he said, recalling that two weeks ago U.S. President George W. Bush spoke of a "crusade" against terrorism.
Arabiyat said that the IAF had sent a message to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which meets Wednesday in Doha, "urging it to oppose the hostile U.S. plans against Muslims which are aimed at sowing dissent among them."
Five days after the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, the IAF issued a
fatwa (Islamic ruling) condemning as "treason" any attempt by Muslims to join a U.S.-led anti-terror campaign.
Gulf newspapers, on the other hand, squarely laid the blame Monday on the Taliban for their own impending downfall after a first night of U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan.
"The international community has realized that it was time to eradicate terrorism, strike at the tools of terrorism, dry up its finances and put an end to an era," said the Abu Dhabi government daily
Al-Ittihad.
It said the Taliban had stymied all efforts to defuse the crisis by refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden.
"Calls were made and advice offered, but they fell on deaf ears open only to the echo of extremist ideas and which are interested only in schemes to sow terror and death in the world, without a just cause, ideology or vision," the newspaper added.
"There was no choice but to hit back against the sponsors of terrorism in a way likely to wipe them out, limit their damage and let the peoples of the world live in peace and security."
In Kuwait, Al-Watan newspaper ran an editorial voicing hope that Iraq would also be included in the air strikes to bring down Saddam, whose forces invaded the emirate in 1990.
Al-Watan columnist Fouad al-Hashem wrote, "The important question now is when and how it will end ... We pray to the Almighty that the U.S. strikes will include the Iraqi regime, to oust it once and for all."
But, in another comment, the daily said, "Arabs and Muslims, with heavy heart, suffer pain watching the operations underway in Afghanistan."
Qatar's al-Watan predicted a "long marathon [of reprisals] which aim not only to force out the Taliban and destroy the bases of Al-Qa'eda, but also to combat, through a series of secret battles waged, everything the United States considers to be terrorism."
"We are entering a cycle of violence which could be more serious and more dangerous than anything we have seen until now."
However, al-Watan questioned the outcome, saying, "The American war against terrorism is a war against ghosts."
Al-Raya, also published in Doha, said, "The war on terrorism should not consist of a military act of vengeance which is not based on evidence against the terrorists involved."
Dubai government's al-Bayan said, "The Taliban did not understand the regional and international developments, and stuck to their extremist views until the last moment, letting slip by the chance to avoid the horrors of war for the Afghan people."
But it added that the war on terror "must not let pass unpunished the state terrorism practiced by the mafia in power in Israel."
In Saudi Arabia, al-Watan daily called for the war to be against all terrorists, including Israel.
"The United States has declared war against terror. So, let it be a war against all terrorists."
"Let it be a war against terror, [against] state terrorism being practiced by Israel against the women, children and old men of the people of Palestine."
In Beirut, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud expressed 'concern' at the U.S. strikes on Afghanistan, emphasizing the role that the U.N. must play in the war against terrorism.
"We reiterate our strong condemnation of terrorism, but we consider that the combat against terrorism must be waged under the auspices of the United Nations," he said.
Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi warned the U.S. strikes aimed at bases of Afghanistan's Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden, could spark hostile and uncontrollable reactions, stating that the timing was deliberate.
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