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http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=SP79404

Special Dispatch Series - No. 794

October 6, 2004
No.794

"Reactions to Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's Fatwa Calling for the Abduction and Killing of American Civilians in Iraq"

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "At a convention on the subject of "Pluralism in Islam" which took place in late August, 2004 at the Egyptian Journalists' Union in Cairo, Sheikh Dr. Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and one of the most important religious authorities in Islamist circles, issued a religious legal opinion permitting the abduction and killing of American civilians in Iraq in order to pressure the American army to evacuate its forces. Al-Qaradhawi stressed the fact that in his view, "all of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately. The mutilation of corpses [however] is forbidden in Islam." [1]

Al-Qaradhawi issued this opinion one week after prominent Muslim clerics from various countries published a statement calling for support for the forces fighting against the coalition in Iraq. This statement was signed by 93 Muslim clerics, including prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, among them Al-Qaradhawi, as well as leaders from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah. [2]"