#4
Russian Muslims Angered by Bombing
November 5, 2001
By ANATOLY MEDETSKY
MOSCOW (AP) - A leader of Russia's large Muslim community lashed out Monday at the U.S. air campaign against Afghanistan and warned that Moscow's support for the bombardment could cause divisions in Russia.
``It's a criminal war. I think Americans will suffer a failure there, as in Vietnam. It's futile to wage war against Allah,'' said Nafigulla Ashir, a co-chairman of the Russian Mufti Council, which groups Islamic clerics from across Russia.
U.S. and Russian officials have repeatedly insisted that the campaign is aimed at terrorists, not Muslims.
In an emotional speech, Ashir said it would be justified for any of Russia's 20 million Muslims to take up arms and help the Taliban militia, which the United States has targeted for sheltering terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden.
Ashir said some Russian Muslims may have joined up already. ``What should a Muslim feel after seeing the footage of men weeping over bodies of women and children ripped apart in the bombings?'' he asked.
The mufti said Russia's support for the U.S.-led effort to stamp out terrorism is producing a rift within this country.
President Vladimir Putin's backing of U.S.-led coalition against terrorism has won it closer political and economic relations with the West. But some have warned Putin's stance could inflame predominantly Muslim regions in Russia, already tense from the 2-year-old war between federal troops and Islamic rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
``The events that are happening will predetermine Russia's future as either the future of a unified country or the future that befell Yugoslavia and the USSR,'' Ashir said.
Muslims constitute 13 percent of the country's population, many of them concentrated in republics near Kazakstan.
Ashir said Russia's involvement is against its national interests because it has ceded its influence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to the United States.
``They (Americans) will never leave these areas, just like they did in Kosovo and in the Persian Gulf,'' he said.
Russia's chief mufti, Talgat Tadzhuddin, on Monday blasted U.S. plans to continue bombings throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
``By failing to respect religious sentiments of others Americans are provoking a new series of terror attacks against themselves,'' he told the Interfax news agency.
Next Article