Arabs react strongly to the horror unleashed by the radical and insane Moslem terrorist

Hostage-takers in Russia as well as in Iraq are only harming Islam

In a surprising turn of events, Arab press has taken a hostile reaction to the radical Moslems who took a Russian school and killed 450 children.

AP reported that al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, has taken a virulent attack aimed towards the radicals who recently seized a Russian school and killing 450 young children.

"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims” he wrote. al-Rashed continued and went on to say:” Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless we admit the scandalous facts, rather than offer condemnations or justifications”.

Ahmed Bahgat, an Egyptian Islamist, wrote in his column in Egypt's leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, that hostage-takers in Russia as well as in Iraq are only harming Islam.

"If all the enemies of Islam united together and decided to harm it ... they wouldn't have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have done by their stupidity, miscalculations, and misunderstanding of the nature of this age," Bahgat wrote. The horrifying images of the dead and wounded Russian students "showed Muslims as monsters who are fed by the blood of children and the pain of their families."

"What is the guilt of those children? Why should they be responsible for your conflict with the government?" Egypt's top Muslim cleric, Grand Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, was quoted as saying during a Friday sermon in Banha, 30 miles north of Cairo.

"You are taking Islam as a cover and it is a deceptive cover; those who carry out the kidnappings are criminals, not Muslims," Tantawi, who heads Al-Azhar University, the highest authority in the Sunni Islamic world, was quoted by Egypt's Middle East News agency as saying.
More developing.

Michael Berglin