And no, it isn’t Al-Hilali.
“Canberra cleric praises jihadists,” from AAP, with thanks to JM:
THE most senior Muslim cleric in Canberra has praised Islamic jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mohammed Swaiti yesterday called on God to grant “victory to mujahideen (Muslim holy warriors)” worldwide, The Weekend Australian newspaper reports.
“God grant victory to the mujahideen in his name in all places,” Sheik Swaiti called out twice in Arabic over a microphone at Abu Bakr mosque in Yarralumla in front of about 500 worshippers.
“God grant victory to mujahideen in Palestine, and Chechnya and Kashmir and Afghanistan and Iraq.”
While Sheik Swaiti translated his sermon into English for non-Arabic-speaking members, the imam of Canberra’s only mosque omitted the praise for Islamic jihadists in the English version.
Why bother, Swaiti? All us English speakers know that jihad is just an inner spiritual struggle. That’s what your coreligionists here in the U.S. tell us all the time. And they warn us that only wicked, wretched, frenziedly racist Islamophobes believe jihad has anything to do with warfare! So we know you meant that you hoped Allah granted victory to all the inner spiritual strugglers in “Palestine,” and Chechnya and Kashmir and Afghanistan and Iraq — right? Right?