A senior official of the Islamist militant group Hamas, echoing calls by Taliban clerics in Afghanistan, urged Muslims to unite against any US retaliation for the terror attacks in New York and Washington.
In Cairo, the spokesman of Egypt's largest Muslim fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, defended the Taliban's threat of revenge for any US action against Afghanistan and urged Washington to show restraint.
"I join the cause for Muslims to be united in order to deter the United States from launching war against Muslims in Afghanistan, the Hamas official, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi," said in response to the calls by clerics in Kabul.
"It is impossible for Muslims to stand handcuffed and blindfolded while other Muslims, their brothers, are being attacked. The Muslim world should stand up against the American threats which are fed by the Jews," Rantissi said.
Taliban clerics used today’s prayers to urge Muslims around the world to unite against the United States if it attacked Afghanistan, and threatened revenge by other means in the event of such attacks.
Hamas has carried out a series of suicide attacks in Israel during the nearly year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, killing scores of Israelis.
The Palestinian Authority, led by President Yasser Arafat, had no comment on the Taliban's call for Muslim unity.