Mubarak warns of '100 bin Ladens'

Post-9/11 Era Forum

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says the U.S.-led war on Iraq would produce "one hundred new bin Ladens," driving more Muslims to anti-Western militancy.

"When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences," Mubarak told Egyptian soldiers in the city of Suez on Monday.

"Instead of having one (Osama) bin Laden, we will have 100 bin Ladens," he said.

Osama bin Laden is the Saudi-born fugitive Islamic militant leader blamed by the United States for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Egypt, a key regional U.S. ally which has cracked down hard on Islamic militants, publicly opposes the war launched by Washington to overthrow Iraq's President Saddam Hussein.

European opponents of the war, led by French President Jacques Chirac, have also argued that military action against Iraq would fuel terrorism and split the international coalition assembled by Washington to fight bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Mubarak said Iraqi forces fighting U.S. and British troops were "guarding Iraq's lands and defending its national honour and nobility" in the conflict.

Reflecting widespread public anger at what many Arabs see as Western aggression against an Arab country, he said the war would cause a "great tragedy (and) destroy a deep-rooted culture and people."
'Double standard'

"Egypt's position has been and still is clear in rejecting .. .the military option and rejecting participation in military action of the coalition forces against brotherly Iraq," he said.

Mubarak said the war had raised many questions, especially among the Arab and Muslim peoples of the Middle East, about the "credibility of the international system of collective security represented in the United Nations."

Many Arabs think Washington has employed double standards in enforcing U.N. resolutions on Iraq while not making Israel comply with resolutions demanding withdrawal from Palestinian territories and an end to Jewish settlements. (Arab views)

Mubarak read out the highlights of an international plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace called the "roadmap," saying that while the Palestinian Authority had accepted it, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had asked for 100 changes.

"This means the roadmap has been rendered meaningless. Unless the big powers agree and put forward a mechanism to implement it without any alterations ... I believe the roadmap will not move on the right road and it might lead to complications," he said.

Iraq War Boosts Militants' Recruiting
Tue Apr 1, 4:01 AM ET

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan - Riding a wave of anti-American sentiment, outlawed Islamic extremist organizations that were routed by the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan (news - web sites) in 2001 are making a comeback.

Recruitment in Pakistan of potential terrorists appears to be on the rise. Militant leaders freed from house arrest have returned to the mosques to rally the faithful against the United States.

Muslim radicals are feeding on anger over the war in Iraq (news - web sites) to regroup and revitalize, raising the threat of more anti-U.S. terrorism around the world.

"They are defiant. They are angry. More and more people are angry," said Abu Mujahed, a militant whose name is a nom de guerre.

He said new recruits are being found by way of Internet chat rooms that deal with the war on Iraq and "American aggression."

Analysts say the Iraq war is emboldening militants, who believe the United States is distracted by the fighting.

"Militants know that the United States is fully engaged in Iraq and that has diluted their focus on the war on terror," said Riffat Hussein, a political analyst.

"The militants feel the government will not maintain as close a watch on them because the American pressure to keep down or stop all together the activities of militants is off."

The war also is squeezing Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network and the former Taliban regime.

Musharraf's support for Washington must be balanced against two powerful forces at home. One is the army, dominated by religious conservatives who were reluctant about the U.S. war in Afghanistan and who now staunchly oppose the war in Iraq. The second are elements within the Pakistan intelligence agency still closely allied to militants.

Old militant groups, outlawed as terrorist groups, have re-emerged under new guises and operate openly as "political" groups. Jaish-e-Mohammed is now Khudam-ul Islam, Harakat-ul Mujahedeen's new name is Jamiat-ul Ansar, and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is now called Jamaat-e-Dawa.

Other Islamic countries face a similar surge of support for violent movements: Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, to name those most friendly toward the United States.

In Egypt, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to transform the country into an Islamic state, is gaining exposure at anti-U.S. protests on a scale rarely seen in Cairo.

Dia'a Rashwan, an expert on radical Islamic groups at Egypt's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said he has noticed a trend as he navigated Web sites and chat rooms in recent days.

"Now we have many calls to jihad, and those calls aren't only coming from what we usually call radicals or extremists," he said. More moderate clerics are using such language, as are Islamic thinkers who usually confine themselves to political analysis, not calls to arms, he said.

In Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are still pursuing Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts, the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is circulating posters of his fresh decree calling for a holy war against the United States. The signatures of 600 Muslim clerics are attached.

Mullah Omar's old regime has shored up its alliances with remnants of al-Qaida and fighters loyal to rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Already, an increase is noticeable in attacks on U.S. forces, international peacekeepers and nongovernment organizations.

There are only two camps left in the world today, says the decree from the one-eyed mullah who dominated Afghanistan for seven years: "One is Islam, which is a religion of peace and the other symbol is Bush, who is a symbol of terror and hatred."

the real symbols of hatered are not iraq,iran,isareal,turkey,egypt or other arab countries its individuels like saddam,ben laden and a few more. in time they will be removed and then, only than the world will be a more peaceful place to live for all on this earth.

too late ...............

you are really not that blind are you bluestar....lol