Sorry to be a Glass-Half-Empty guy again, but what took you so long, Sheikh Abdul? Saudis have been streaming into Iraq for over two years now. But of course, this declaration was prompted by Zarqawi’s declaration of war against the Shia. It isn’t so much the jihad against non-Muslims that upsets him; he just wants to defend Iraqi Sunnis. From AKI, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Jeddah, 19 Sept. (AKI) – Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, has spoken out against those seeking to sow civil war in neighbouring Iraq. “Adding to the bloodshed and murder of innocents by planes and bombs are attempts by suspicious parties to trigger sectarian tension between the people of Iraq,” said Al-Asheikh who was quoted by the Arab News daily.
These jihadists were trying to stoke intra-religious clashes “to serve the aims of the enemies conspiring against Muslims,” al-Asheikh argued. Al-Qaeda’s number one in Iraq, the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war against Shiites in an audio recording posted to the Internet last week.
Besides al-Asheikh, Iraq’s main Sunni Arab religious authority, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, has also condemned al-Zarqawi’s declaration.