Saudis Raise Cash for War Victims
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Children emptied their piggybanks and a woman donated her wedding dress as a Saudi campaign continued Friday to raise millions for Afghan victims of U.S.-led attacks.
With Muslims streaming into mosques for the day of weekly prayers, clerics in this Gulf nation and across the Middle East denounced the U.S. assault and called for holy war.
Criticism was not directed just at the United States for its air campaign, which targets Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and the al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden. Muslim nations - in particular Pakistan and Turkey - were singled out for siding with the Americans in a war that has led to the deaths of innocent Muslims.
``We condemn what happened to the Americans, but what is happening to the Afghans is even worse,'' Sheik Mohammad bin Mubarak al-Tawwash, preacher at the Al-Kabir Mosque in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, said Friday. ``We pray to God to protect the Muslims ... and we pray to God to give Muslims victory against the infidels.''
Public figures Thursday sent e-mails and mobile phone text messages, while a Saudi television ran constant ads, urging people to donate to the fund, which the advertisements said was a ``national'' campaign under the auspices of the Interior Ministry.
The campaign began Thursday afternoon. By late that night, the contributions totaled $36 million, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
King Fahd donated $9.1 million, SPA said, adding that a woman caller gave her wedding dress. ``Throughout the kingdom children were observed emptying out their piggybanks in which they have been saving their pocket money,'' the news agency said.
Following a prayer service at a Khobar mosque Friday, a 25-year-old who would identify himself only as Saleh, said Americans are terrorists.
``We pray to God that their destruction will come soon.'' said Saleh, who said he made a donation in hopes that it will help the cause that bin Laden, a Saudi exile, was promoting.
``Osama is a holy warrior and he, God willing, will prevail over the infidels,'' Saleh said.
Several Saudi clerics also used their services to praise bin Laden as a ``true Muslim hero.''
In Bahrain, prayer leaders at two Manama mosques urged worshippers to donate money for the Afghans, while outside one of the mosques boys collected funds.
``We should help them because they don't have houses, they are poor people and what America's doing to them is forbidden because there is no clear evidence'' against bin Laden, Saad Abdullah, 15, said outside Ibrahim Khalil Kano mosque.
Abdullah described bin Laden, the man held responsible by the United States for the Sept. 11 terror attacks that killed more than 5,000 people, as a ``good'' man and a ``mujahid'' - a holy warrior.
Bahrain, a longtime U.S. ally and home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, has indicated its support for the United States in its war on terrorism.
``The big crime is that Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Turkey are in the war that is killing Muslims,'' Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers at a mosque in south Beirut, Lebanon.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi cleric said the anthrax scare inside the United States ``is a result of God's anger.'' ``We challenge you (the Americans) to strike us because God will avenge,'' Bakir Abdul-Razak told worshippers during Friday prayers in Um al-Ma'arek mosque.
At a Jordanian university mosque, preacher Abdul-Wahab Kassasbeh said all Muslims were obliged to join a holy war if a Muslim country is attacked - even women. ``If their husbands refuse their participation they should revolt against them and join the mujahedeen.''
In Tehran, prayer leader Mohammad Yazdi reiterated the Iranian position that the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan are wrong, asking ``is it possible to clean a crime with a crime, to wash blood with blood, to clean ugliness with ugliness?''
World public opinion is against the strikes on Afghanistan, he said, and everyone knows that ``that person'' - an apparent reference to bin Laden - ``was created by the Americans themselves and trained by them and now has become trouble for them.''
In Egypt, there was no repeat of last week's mass protests following Friday prayers.
Originally published October 19, 2001.
