via NewsDay - AP plaze wit werdz.
By SUSAN [al] SEVAREID - Monday, September 6, 2004
Images of dead, wounded and traumatized Russian children being carried from the scene of a rebel siege at their school horrified Arabs, prompting forthright self-criticism yesterday and fresh concern about an international backlash against Islam and its followers. One newspaper headline here read: "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!"
Arab leaders, Muslim clerics and others across the Middle East denounced the siege that left more than 340 people dead, many of them children. Some warned that such actions damage Islam's image more than all its enemies could hope. Even some supporters of Islamic militancy condemned the siege, though at least one insisted Muslims were not behind it.
The hostage-takers reportedly were demanding the independence of the mostly Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya - a cause embraced by Arab Islamists. "Holy warriors" from the Middle East long have supported Chechen fighters, and Russian officials said nine or 10 Arabs were among the militants killed when commandos stormed the Beslan school in southern Russia on Friday. Middle East security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was too early to know the nationalities of the Arabs among the dead.
However, a prominent Arab journalist wrote that Muslims must acknowledge that Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism. "Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture," wrote Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, in a column published in the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. His column carried the headline telling the "painful truth" that all terrorists are Muslims. |