OIC concerned over civilian casualties in Afghanistan
Regional-Afghanistan, Politics, 10/11/2001

The world's largest Islamic body expressed concern yesterday at the prospect of civilian casualties in Afghanistan but steered clear of condemning US strikes against the Taliban rulers sheltering Osama bin Laden.

A communique issued at the end of an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said member countries representing 1.2 billion Muslims strongly condemned the September 11 attacks.

"The conference also expressed its concern that confronting terrorism could lead to casualties among innocent civilians in Afghanistan and asserted the importance of assuring the territorial integrity of Afghanistan and its Islamic character," the communique added.

The 56-nation OIC, meeting in the Gulf state of Qatar, said the conference expressed its rejection of the targeting of any Arab country under the pretext of combatting terrorism.

It also rejected aggression against any Islamic state - a phrase seen by delegates as referring to attacks on Afghan civilians rather than on alleged terrorists or the Taliban.

The Taliban have stirred strong criticism from many Muslim nations for their extremist ideology and only one country, OIC member Pakistan, recognises them as Afghanistan's government.

The communique issued by the meeting, called by Iran to discuss the crisis over the September 11 attacks, said: "These terrorist acts contradict the teaching of all religions and human and moral values."

"We would have liked to see an internationally-led (anti-terrorism) campaign," said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, when asked about the US-led strikes.

"Terrorism is a global phenomenon and any action against it is best addressed through the United Nations and the international community," he said, speaking on behalf of the core Arab group.

The emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, current president of the OIC, opened the meeting by saying the action should be based on solid evidence and must not touch innocent civilians.

"We assert our utter rejection of these attacks and assert that confronting them must not touch innocent civilians and must not extend beyond those who carried out those attacks," he said.

"This requires the existence of irrefutable evidence against the perpetrators and that military operations, after announcing the evidence, be limited to them alone," he added.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called earlier in the day for international action to rid the world of terrorism but also used his speech to Muslim ministers to criticise Israel.

Arafat told the meeting that Israel was taking advantage of last month's attacks in the United States to launch new offensives against Palestinians.

"The terrible terror actions that struck the United States on September 11...have confronted the world order and international relations with new and unprecedented challenges requiring the world community and the United Nations to pause, reject them and do all that is necessary to stop them," he said.

He added that the world community needed to take "joint action to rid humanity once and for all of all forms of dark terrorism, occupation...and hated racial discrimination".

Arafat also said that Israel "is exploiting the American tragedy and the world's preoccupation with it to escalate its aggression against our land and to re-occupy large parts of our liberated land".

Islamic nations hailed US President George Bush's statement supporting creation of a Palestinian state, but urged him to back his words with deeds to stop the Middle East becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.

Bush, who is leading a campaign against terrorism involving many Arab and Muslim states, said last week that establishing a Palestinian state had always been part of his strategic vision to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"This position represents, in our view, a positive development of great importance, which will put things in their true course," Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani said.

Previous Stories:
  Continued air, missile bombardment at Afghanistan   (10/10/2001)
  American, British attacks continue against Afghanistan   (10/9/2001)
  Musharraf says he got guarantees that US attacks at Afghanistan will be limited   (10/9/2001)

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