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Attacking Iraqi Institutions Aggression, 'Not Jihad': Scholars
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A
file photo of an attack on an Iraqi police station
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By
Mazen Ghazi, IOL Correspondent
BAGHDAD,
February 25 (IslamOnline.net) – Attacks against Iraqi institutions
are not Jihad, but rather aggression and conspiracy impeding a power
transfer from occupation forces, said a religious edict released on
Tuesday, February 24.
"These
aggressions are a conspiracy against the country, as they threaten its
unity and independence and block all efforts to turn power back into
the hands of Iraqis on June 2004," the edict said after being
signed by a group of Muslim scholars in Al-Anbar city.
The
edict came one day after a car bomb ripped through a police station in
the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least seven policemen
and the two bombers, as at least 250 Iraqis were killed in other
separate attacks.
"Any
honest Muslim should help speed up handing sovereignty to the Iraqis
for the sake of maintaining its unity and securing its
independence," read the fatwa, a copy of which was obtained by
IslamOnline.net.
The
signatories said these attacks "have absolutely nothing to do
with Jihad, but aggression", and warned against shedding the
blood of innocent civilians.
They
named the recent bombing attacks against official building and police
stations recently growing in the already turbulent country.
"Muslims
should abide by this fatwa and consider it a religious
obligation," they said.
Some
47 Iraqis perished
in a car-bomb attack at a Baghdad recruitment center for the New Iraqi
Army on February 11 a day after a bombing at a police station south of
Baghdad killed
up to 50 people.
Closing
Ranks
The
fatwa called on Iraqis to avoid bearing grudges against each other,
and for closing ranks - all for a "better bright future" for
the country.
"Any
penalty should be rather implemented by justice, in order to avoid the
prevalence of the forest law," said the fatwa.
Observers
said that attackers of occupation forces could run into local
inhabitants while hitting their targets, as many Iraqi survivors blame
U.S. occupation forces for the attacks that further spread chaos and
anarchy in the country and delay the cherished power transfer.
At
least 11 Iraqis were killed and 58 occupation forces soldiers wounded
in twin attacks on a Polish
military base in southern Iraq on Wednesday, February 18.
Thousand
of Sunnis descended on the outside of the Om Al-Qura on Thursday,
February 19, warning against a sectarian violence in light of the
highly-charged situation in the country.
Some
mosque Sunni scholars were assassinated in a number of attacks by
unidentified attackers.
A
car bomb explosion outside one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines in
the Shiite city of An- Najaf in August last year killed Ayatollah
Mohammad Baqer Al-Hakim, one of Iraq's best-known Shiite Muslim
politician and head of the Iran-backed Supreme Assembly of the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI).
U.S.
civil administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said Saturday, February 21,
that elections would
be impossible to be held for at least one year, claiming that
conditions are not conducive for the polls in the oil-rich country.
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