Death to America, infidels: thunder clerics on Friday

‘‘To all Arabs and Muslims: kill the sons of the infidels…Kill the Americans wherever you find them,’’ said Sheikh Abdel- Latif Humayem at the city’s Mother of All Battles Mosque.

‘‘You Arabs and Muslims: Cut all diplomatic ties and forget the international legitimacy. The blood of Iraqis is being spilled on the land of Iraq,’’ he said to the thunder of the Muslim rallying cry of Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest). He said war on Iraq targeted Islam and the Koran.

‘‘They came to launch war on us, they came to invade us…Now there are only two trenches — the trenches of the nation of Prophet Mohammad and the trench led by America, its allies and subordinates,’’ he said. ‘‘Fight the enemy with rifles, with the swords, with rocks and stones. Our bodies will be belt of fires,’’ he added.

Another preacher at Abu Hanifa mosque said: ‘‘The land of Iraq will be the graveyard of the Americans’’.

Anger at the perceived silence of Arab leaders in face of war dominated the prayers. ‘‘Arabs and Muslims what are you waiting for after this — that Americans occupy the holy mosques of Mecca and Medina?’’ he said.

In many West Asian cities also preachers fired up their congregations with powerful sermons denouncing the war.

‘‘Let God be with us (Muslims) against the infidels,’’ said one in Cairo’s downtown Gama’ia el-Shara’ia, asking God to punish the Americans.

In Iran, Tehran’s Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said the US’ ‘‘Aim is to dominate Iraq’s oil wells and also to dominate the region, and give Israel the security and guarantee that nobody could harm it.’’ Worshippers at Tehran University cheered his sermon with ritual chants of ‘‘Death to America!’’

At Gaza’s central Al-Omari mosque, Imam Mohammed Nijen said: ‘‘Arab leaders should open the borders so that fighters and volunteers can reach Iraq and defend Iraqi soil. Today jihad and the fight are a religious duty.’’

The Grand Sheikh of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mohamed Sayyedal-Tantawy said in his sermon: ‘‘Whoever defends the Iraqi people and himself and dies, will be considered a martyr…Islamic sharia law says we must defend the Iraqi people and stand by them. If we fail, we have wasted the trust that God has placed in us.’’

In Sanaa, one cleric wearing a traditional turban told worshippers: ‘‘We pray for victory for the Iraqi people and for the defeat of the invading forces. May an earthquake overturn the American and British forces in Iraq.’’ (Reuters)