The Iranian press on Saturday denounced attacks against Muslims or Arabs living in the United States and warned against possible US strikes against Afghanistan following the September 11 terror attacks.
The US people's "emotional" reactions to "Muslim and Arabs in the past few days are just as blindly vengeful" as were the terrorist acts in New York and Washington, the English-language Iran News said, adding that this would "add to the crisis.
"It is essential to question how it is possible that a relatively large number of educated people in the West would, prematurely and with prejudice, attack Muslims? Why would they act according to what they merely believe to be just?" the daily said.
"Uprooting terrorism requires an international collective will, encompassing all countries under the auspices of the United Nations," it added.
Several attacks directed against Islamic religious and cultural centers have been reported in the United States in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the attack on the Pentagon Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the conservative Jomhuri-Eslami said Washington would commit a "stupidity" by attacking "Muslims or a region where Muslims live." That was an allusion to Afghanistan, which may possibly be a target of US retaliation for harboring Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden, the key suspect in the recent terror attacks.
"Stop this craziness, these American leaders who are used to creating enemies abroad in order to hide their internal weaknesses," the daily said.
"The entire world knows that the Palestinian movements, bin Laden and others, neither have the means nor the power to detour several planes to the heart of America and attack the most sensitive economic, political and security places and kill thousands of people," it said.
"These acts of revenge will not only not solve anything, but will increase the hatred of the Muslim poeple against the United States," it said -- TEHRAN (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
