KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's opposition leader has urged Muslims
to join in a jihad (holy war) against the United States if Afghanistan is
attacked by U.S.-led forces, The Star newspaper reported Monday.
The daily quoted Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition
Pan Islamic Party (PAS), as saying that it was the duty of all Muslims to aid
their brethren in Afghanistan if they are attacked.
He was commenting on planned U.S.-led military strikes against terrorist
targets in Afghanistan and against the country's ruling Taliban for harboring
Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden.
The United States has named bin Laden as the prime suspect in the devastating
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the
Pentagon outside Washington, in which over 6,500 people were killed.
The Taliban has said it will declare a holy war on the U.S. if Washington
strikes and has called on all Muslims around the world for support in such an
event.
Nik Aziz likened a war between U.S. and Afghanistan to ''a contest between an
elephant and a mousedeer.''
''It's a stupid move. What is Afghanistan? It is filled with mountains, has no
income and its people are starving. There is nothing there,'' he said.
PAS is the biggest opposition party in Malaysia. Its influence surged in 1998
after then Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was sacked by Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad and subsequently sentenced to a 15-year jail term for
corruption and sodomy, which Anwar denied.
Anwar, who had turned against Mahathir, accusing his one-time mentor of
corruption and cronyism, had taken his cause to the street and attracted wide
appeal to the PAS' advantage and to the detriment of Mahathir's United Malays
National Organization (UMNO), a more moderate Malay-Muslim party.
PAS now rules two of Malaysia's 14 states, Kelantan and Terengganu, where its
traditionalist policies have raised eyebrows.
Those include separate supermarket checkout counters for males and females,
lights on in cinemas to prevent vice and bans on alcohol and on rock music.
Even some Malay traditional music and dance has been banned for being
''un-Islamic.''
The Sun daily, meanwhile, quoted the religious adviser to Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad, Abdul Hamid Othman, urging local Muslims not to hastily
respond to the Taliban's call for a holy war against the U.S.
''Our advice to Muslims here is that for the moment, don't get involved. Let's
not act hastily,'' Abdul Hamid said, adding that participating in the war in
not consistent with the country's non-interference policy.
AP-NY-09-24-01 0544EDT
Copyright 2001 The Kyodo News Service.