Boston.com / US strikes Afghanistan, Sudan

Pakistani moslem fundamentalists burn a US flag during a protest in Karachi Friday in reaction to the missile strikes. (Reuters)

On Arab streets, Clinton-Lewinsky affair seen as culprit
CAIRO, Egypt - In mosques and in McDonald's, Arabs on Friday criticized U.S. missile strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan as driven more by President Clinton's need to escape scandal than by a battle against terrorism.
Many also said the attacks would only increase Muslim hatred and violence against the United States. Even among the few Arabs interviewed who defended the U.S. attacks, some questioned whether the targeted Sudanese factory really made chemical weapons ``precursors'' as U.S. officials say -- or medicines as Sudan maintains.
``The U.S. ... has the right to defend its interests, but it must be certain,'' said Egyptian airline clerk Somaya Farouk, 23. ``If there was a 1 percent chance that this was a pharmaceuticals plant, then it should have held off.''
Clinton said the missiles hit terrorist camps in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire blamed by Washington for the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A factory linked to bin Laden in Sudan also was attacked.
Despite anger over the U.S. attacks, there were few large protests similar to those often organized by Arab states. Egypt, which accused Sudan of harboring the radicals who unsuccessfully tried to kill President Hosni Mubarak in 1995, issued a statement calling for a meeting on international terrorism.
In the West Bank, Palestinians chanted threats against Clinton and burned American flags. ``America is the enemy of the Muslims,'' prayer leader Sheik Hamed Bitawi told about 2,000 people outside a Nablus mosque.
The strikes were harshly criticized by both Iraq and non-Arab Iran, which, along with Libya and Sudan, are on the U.S. list of terrorist sponsoring states.
Newspapers and Arabs on the street accused Clinton of ordering the attacks to draw the spotlight off his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Reading a newspaper in a McDonald's branch in Bahrain, 25-year-old Saudi citizen Mohammed al-Turki called the American missile strikes ``a plot to divert public attention from Clinton's wrongdoings.''
Shaaban Ahmed Mohammed, 34, owner of a Cairo newspaper stand, was the only Arab interviewed who saw the strikes by the United States as likely to decrease violence.
``It has the right to protect itself. If it remains silent after the last attack (in Kenya and Tanzania), it will be the victim of numerous blows,'' he said.
More typical was the view of Hussein Rashid, 41, a bookkeeper from Cairo.
``When you wash your hands in blood repeatedly, they will never be clean,'' he said. ``Clinton and the U.S have for years been killing indiscriminately, so this is not new. But it certainly won't go unanswered by the Muslim world.''
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, 08/21/98

BEIRUT - Arabs boiled with anger on Friday in reaction to U.S. missile attacks on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan and some accused President Bill Clinton of ordering the strikes to take the heat off his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

In Tripoli, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whose own home was hit by an American air raid in 1986, led a rally to condemn the missile strike against Sudan.

``USA, Down, Down,'' the crowds chanted. ``Sudan do not fear, Gaddafi's people are with you.''

Washington launched the cruise missiles at what it said were terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for bomb attacks two weeks ago on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which at least 263 people including 12 Americans died.

In Beirut, the radical Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which the United States describes as a terrorist group that has hit American targets before, warned that the strikes could unleash further violence against American interests around the world.

``If the United States thinks that in this way it can terrorise Arabs and Moslems, it is sure that this savage act against the innocent will fan the flame of antagonistic feelings towards the United States,'' Hizbollah spokesman Ammar Mousawi told Reuters.

Naeem Qassem, Hizbollah's deputy chief, told Reuters Television: ``We consider the strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan an aggression and terrorism in all its forms because no state has the right to appoint itself as the ruler of the world.''

Those bitter feelings were echoed by preachers in Beirut mosques.

A Lebanese newspaper found graphic language to suggest Clinton had ordered the action to deflect attention from a scandal over former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

``The United States closed the zipper of its president and opened the buttocks of its warships to rocket Afghanistan and Sudan. Lewinsky's dress is no longer the evidence...after Clinton discovered Osama Bin Laden's dishdash,'' said an editorial in al-Kifah al-Arabi newspaper. A dishdash is a traditional flowing robe worn by Arab men.

``Clinton attempts to cover up scandal with aggression against Sudan and Afghanistan,'' said a front page headline in Lebanon's widely-read as-Safir newspaper.

Even newspapers in the Gulf, where Washington is valued as a vital military and political shield against regional powerhouses Iraq and Iran, had strong words for Washington.

Qatar's independent al-Sharq newspaper said in an editorial that by lauching the attacks, the United States had resorted to the ``law of the jungle in handling international problems.''

``Likewise, it was a terrorist response to a terrorist act,'' it said.

That charge was echoed by Egypt's outlawed but influential Moslem Brotherhood which predicted that ``this act of terrorism and muscle flexing'' would ``ignite the flame of extremism and instability in the region.''

Palestinian officials also denounced the strikes.

``We are against any attack on any Arab state by the United states or by any other country,'' said senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour.

``Terrorism has many manifestations. Killing of Palestinians by Israeli settlers was another way of terrorism. I call upon the international community to put limits on the American explanation for the term terrorism,'' he told Reuters.

Jordan reserved judgement but called for dialogue instead of escalating violence.


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