Reuters; AP. 14 Septemeber 2001. Various stories, combined and edited. TEHRAN, JERUSALEM, GAZA and CAIRO -- Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi accused Israel of exploiting the terror attacks in the United States to try to further complicate the volatile situation in the region, state television reported on Friday. "Even as all Muslim countries have condemned this incident, Israel is unfortunately after provocative measures," it reported Kharrazi as saying in a telephone conversation with his Austrian counterpart Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Thursday. "The situation in the region is very complicated and difficult. Israel's actions could leave a negative impact in Muslim countries," he said, urging the world community to contain Israel. "This incident is worrisome for everyone. All Muslims condemn the attacks," Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani said during Friday prayers in Tehran. "But the attacks are becoming an excuse for Israel to make martyrs of the Palestinians and target Islam," he added. "The world should mobilize to prevent these attacks. If we are to fight terrorism, we will have to remove the conditions which breed it," the ayatollah said. "Israel is the foremost terrorist state which fosters terrorism." Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon instructed Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on Friday to cancel plans to hold truce talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Sunday, a senior Israeli political source said. "Sharon told Peres not to meet Arafat on Sunday because the timing of the talks would hurt Israel," the source said, apparently referring to Tuesday's terror attacks in the United States and Sharon's biting comments the next day about Arafat. "He (Arafat) is like (Osama) bin Laden, bin Laden also has a coalition of terror...But the difference is that Arafat still has a choice, he can still make a switch," government spokesman Raanan Gissin quoted Sharon as telling Secretary of State Colin Powell by telephone on Wednesday. While world attention focused on events in the United States, fresh violence erupted in the Gaza Strip. In Gaza's Nusairat refugee camp, more than 2,000 supporters of the militant Hamas group took part in an anti-Israel rally. Holding aloft pictures of Mohammed Ihbeishi, the first Arab-Israeli suicide bomber, they called on Arafat to spurn talks with Israel and warned of further attacks. A Gaza cleric, Abu Abdullah, told thousands of Muslim worshippers attending prayers that the United States was responsible for causing the "severe frustration" that led attackers to strike in New York and Washington. "America supports the injustice and spreads it among the weak people that leads to such malice," he said. A senior official of the Islamist militant group Hamas, echoing calls by Taliban clerics in Afghanistan, urged Muslims on Friday to unite against any U.S. retaliation for the terror attacks in New York and Washington. "I join the cause for Muslims to be united in order to deter the United States from launching war against Muslims in Afghanistan," the Hamas official, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, said in response to the calls by clerics in Kabul. "It is impossible for Muslims to stand handcuffed and blindfolded while other Muslims, their brothers, are being attacked. The Muslim world should stand up against the American threats which are fed by the Jews," Rantissi told Reuters. Taliban clerics used Friday prayers to urge Muslims around the world to unite against the United States if it attacked Afghanistan, and threatened revenge "by other means" in the event of such attacks. In Beirut a man giving his name as Hussein said Israel had killed thousands of Arabs and Muslims over the years "but we haven't seen the United States move at any point...to stop Israel." Now the United States wants Muslims to join it in fighting Muslim Afghanistan "for the sake of one terrorist who does not speak in the name of Arabs or Muslims," he said. In Iraq, the preacher at Imam Al-Azam Mosque in Baghdad criticized those people who sympathized with the U.S. victims. "Have you heard about the hypocrites and the dissemblers who are shedding tears over the tyrants whose hands are stained with the blood of our people, women and children?" the preacher said during his sermon, which was broadcast live on Iraqi television. 20-year-old engineering student, Ahmed Adel said: "The attacks in the United states are the right thing to do. If anyone had asked me to do this myself, I would have done it, and I support whoever did this." Adel added that since "Arabs can't wage a war against Israel or the United States because they are powerful countries, we are forced to this. Suicide operations are the right thing to do." ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
