A top cleric in the Shiite Muslim world accused the United States on Wednesday of conspiring with Israel to strike Syria and urged Arabs to revive an economic boycott of the Jewish state.
| "Yes! It was a conspiracy! A deep-laid plot!" |
"America, which is playing the role of a policeman in the world, wants Israel to be the region's policeman," said Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. "The matter is no longer a threat to one state, or a threat to the region only, because America and Israel constitute a danger that threatens the security of the entire world," Fadlallah said in a statement issued by his office.
| "They're comin' to get us! We should all join together, right now, to protect... ummm... me." |
Israeli fighter-bombers hit what Israel called a training camp for Islamic Jihad militants about 15 miles from Damascus on Sunday. Villagers nearby said Palestinian militants had abandoned the camp years ago.
Yep. Nothing there. Nothing to see. Move along... But as David Warren points out:The target was legitimate enough, and the best proof of this was the immediate Syrian effort to seal it from journalistic inspection; together with Hizbollah reprisals along the Lebanon frontier. Had the target been the mere hiking trails Syrian propaganda described — and which liberal media immediately swallowed whole — it would not have had the kind of fencing and gates around it that at least one enterprising journalist observed. Moreover, the Syrian authorities would have led a media parade through the bombsite. |
The attack retaliated for a suicide bombing that killed 19 people in Israel on Saturday. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing. U.S. officials have said that Israel did not inform Washington in advance of its retaliatory strike. |