Egypt's Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz has called the war on terrorism being waged in Afghanistan "just as despicable a crime" as the September 11 attacks in the United States.
"Of course we grieved for the thousands of innocent civilians whose lives were destroyed on 11 September. But the so-called war on terrorism is just as despicable a crime," Mahfouz said in an interview published Thursday by the English-language Al Ahram weekly, cited by AFP.
"A million innocent Afghans will die if the bombardment does not stop," said the author and winner of the 1998 Nobel for literature.
"While the group that carried out the September 11 attack showed utter disregard for any law or standard or decency, now we find a major world power doing the same," he said.
Egypt has officially supported in abstract terms the US-led war against terrorism, but voiced reservations over the killing of civians and the expansion of war to other countries.
Hundreds of Afghan women, children and other civians have been killed, evidently by mistake, as US warplanes continue bombarding major cities in Afghanistan, which has not seen peace in 23 years.
The last incident of civilian casualties took place when a bus carrying civilians fleeing the battlefield in Kandahar was hit by a US bomb. The ruling Taliban said 40-50 people were killed in the explosion - Albawaba.com
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