Arab states pledge, with strings attached, to help fight terrorists

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 16, 2001

CAIRO -- Many Arab countries are reluctant to give unconditional support to a U.S. strike against suspected terrorists in the region as a result of hard feelings and anti-Western sentiment resulting from the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Support of the Arab community is essential if Washington is to avoid having its campaign against terrorism defined by enemies as a religious struggle by Christians and Jews against the Islamic world.

U.S. officials have said Afghanistan-based Osama bin Laden is a prime suspect in Tuesday's attack and have issued a "with us or against us" ultimatum to other countries.

The United States is likely to win at least the rhetorical support of most of the key players in the Arab world. The immensity of the tragedy has made it virtually impossible for all but the region's most isolated leader, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, to do anything less than condemn the attack. Even Libya's Mohammar Gadhafi has offered condolences.

But the issue for Arab leaders is more nuanced.

While it appears most Arab leaders are speaking the same anti-terrorism language as the Americans, in many cases they do not agree on what constitutes terrorism. Officials here say, for example, that talk of terrorism must also address Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

"You go in any salon in the country and everybody is saying terrorism must be stopped," Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said Saturday. "But they consider occupation also as an act of terrorism."

Syrian President Bashar Assad has written to the White House condemning Tuesday's terror attacks and committing his country to help fight terrorism. But Syria also supports the Lebanese group Hezbollah, saying it is a liberation force. The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist militia.

"Arabs have always been fiercely opposed to terrorism in all its forms," the official Syrian newspaper Al Baath said in a recent editorial. However, it said they also support "legitimate resistance against occupation."

Saudi Arabia, America's most important Persian Gulf ally, has said it will help find the culprits and will cut financial aid to the Taleban, which controls most of Afghanistan and offers sanctuary to bin Laden.

But in an unusually strong diplomatic intervention, the New York Times reported Saturday, Secretary of State Colin Powell has also asked Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to sever diplomatic relations with the Taleban.

American allies Egypt and Jordan have been more cautious.

Jordan, with a population that is more than half Palestinian, has been critical of America's role in supporting Israel during the intifada, or uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Officially we told them that Jordan is beside the United States to confront this monster and we have to finish off terrorists everywhere," Information Minister Saleh Qallab said Saturday. "We told the United States that we are with them. In practical terms, we have to negotiate what they need, what they want."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak explicitly condemned the attack. Nabil Osman, director of the state information service, said Egypt has urged a U.N.-sponsored effort to fight terrorism.

"We are not talking about military coalitions, we are talking about a system," he said. "No country should give terrorists asylum, for example."

In Lebanon, officials talk of an unconditional commitment to help the United States -- but not without mentioning the need to address the Palestinian question.

"We have 100 percent sympathy with the Americans," Hariri said. "We understand that terrorism is against ... everything we stand for. On the other hand, we want to see all the problems in the region resolved."

For his part, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said Saturday that grief-stricken Americans should not wage a "new crusade" against Muslims, but rather learn from the pain that Iraqis and Palestinians have been suffering at the hands of the United States and Israel.

"Just as your beautiful skyscrapers were destroyed and caused your grief, beautiful buildings and precious homes crumbled over their owners in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq because of American weapons used by the Zionists," Hussein said in an open letter to the American people.

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