Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, February 08, 2003
Hamas Threats to Attack Western Targets if US Attacks Iraq
Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) threatened on Friday that Moslems would target western interests all over the world if the United States carried out attack on Iraq.
Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) threatened on Friday that Moslems would target western interests all over the world if the United States carried out attack on Iraq.
The threats were made as hundreds of Hamas supporters rallied at Jabalya Refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip in support for Iraq, waving Iraqi and Palestinian flags as well as posters of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Hamas spiritual leader and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin attended the rally together with other Hamas leaders and delivered an opened written letter that includes such threats.
"The strike on Iraq would be the continuation of the Crusaders' aggression and war, therefore Muslims will have to threaten and strike Western interests, and hit them everywhere," Yassin said in the letter.
He added that the westerns referring to the Americans "are fighting us, and we have to fight them. They threaten our interests, we have to threaten their interests."
Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic group that opposes the resumption of the peace process with Israel, was responsible for dozens of suicide bombing attacks carried out into Israel that killed dozens of people.
In a previous rally to support Iraq, Hamas leaders called upon the Iraqi people to recruit 10,000 Iraqi suicide bombers and blew themselves up as soon as the US Army enters the Iraqi cities.
Following the suicide bombing attacks carried out by the group into Israel, the US considered the group as "a terrorist organization." But Hamas said its attacks were only against the Israelis who occupy the Palestinian territories.
It is the first time that Hamas movement which called the US as the enemy, makes such threats to strike on western interests if the United States launches a possible attack on Iraq.
The quadriplegic leader of Hamas also called upon Arabs and Muslims to boycott US products and "close their doors" against the United States and its allies and not to offer them assistance in the war against Iraq.