Cleric Lauds Bombings by Women
The Washington Post, April 2, 2002
washingtonpost.com
Cleric Lauds Bombings by Women
Reuters
Tuesday, April 2, 2002; Page A10
BEIRUT, April 1 -- One of Lebanon's most prominent Shiite Muslim cleric
has given his blessing to female suicide bombers like one who struck in
Jerusalem on Friday, calling them authors of a "new, glorious history for
Arab and Muslim women."
In the transcript of an interview with al-Jazeera
television faxed by his office today, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said a
holy war of the sort he feels Palestinians are waging against Israel could
require women to undertake such suicide attacks.
"It is true that Islam has not asked women to carry
out jihad, but it permits them to take part if the necessities of defensive
war dictate that women should carry out any regular military operations,
or suicide operations," he said. "We believe that the women who carry out
suicide bombings are martyrs."
In Friday's attack in Jerusalem, an 18-year-old
Palestinian woman killed herself and two other people in a supermarket.
She was the second female Palestinian suicide bomber in the 18-month-old
uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Fadlallah, once the spiritual guide to Lebanon's
Hezbollah guerrillas, has played a largely symbolic role since his falling-out
with the Iranian patrons of the group.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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