Smash the cross - al-Qaeda
2006-09-18 13:38
Rome - Pope Benedict XVI's personal apology for criticising Islam failed to stem anger in some parts of the Muslim world on Monday, despite calls for calm from Islamic and Western leaders.
Hundreds of angry Iraqi demonstrators burned an effigy of the pope in the southern port city of Basra, while al-Qaeda said it will wage jihad (holy war) until the "servant of the cross" (the pope), and the West, are defeated.
Iran said Benedict's apology did not go far enough and called on the 79-year-old pontiff to admit he had made a mistake.
"The pope was right to give these explanations and he said that his comments were badly reported," Tehran government spokesperson Gholam Hossein Elham said.
"These explanations were necessary but not sufficient. He needs to say more clearly that what he said was an error and correct it," he added.
Al-Qaeda threat to 'smash the cross'
An al-Qaeda statement posted on the internet on Monday threatened to "smash the cross".
"We say to the servant of the cross: wait for defeat... We say to infidels and tyrants: wait for what will afflict you," it said.
"We will smash the cross... (you will have no choice but) Islam or death," said the statement attributed to the Mujahedeen consultative council.
Two other armed groups in Iraq, Jaish al-Mujahedeen (the Mujahedeen's Army) and Asaeb al-Iraq al-Jihadiya (League of Jihadists in Iraq), have already threatened the Vatican with reprisals in statements posted on Islamist internet websites.
Apology, diplomatic offensive
In a personal apology on Sunday, the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics said he was "deeply sorry" for the offence caused by his remarks made in Germany on Tuesday in which he quoted an obscure medieval text that criticised some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as "evil and inhuman".
The Vatican meanwhile launched a diplomatic offensive to explain to Muslim countries the pope's position on Islam.
Vatican secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone told the Corriere della Sera that Vatican ambassadors had been asked to explain to political and religious authorities in Muslim countries the full text of the pope's speech, which heretofore had been taken out of context and "heavily manipulated".
Some welcome the apology
A handful of Muslim groups have welcomed the papal apology, although most Muslim nations had yet to respond early on Monday.
Mohammed Habib, a senior member of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood, told AFP they considered the apology a retraction of the pope's statement.
In India, the powerful All India Muslim Personal Law Board based in the northern city of Lucknow called for an end to protests against the Vatican.
'Day of anger' against remarks
But in some quarters, Muslim anger appeared likely to simmer through the week after calls by an Egyptian-born Islamic scholar for followers of the faith to hold a "day of anger" on Friday against the pope's remarks.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Sunni Muslim, said on Al-Jazeera television that he considered the pope had "not apologised" on Sunday.
Speaking in the name of the "world union of scholars of Islam" al-Qaradawi called on Muslims to hold a day of "peaceful anger" on Friday, the last day of collective prayer before the start of Ramadan.
He said this should involve "demonstrations, or sit-ins in the large mosques in the hour following the prayers."
- AFP