Egypt: Report Claims Military Uses Clerics to Convince Soldiers to Kill Protesters
Car bombs, roadside bombs, and shootings killed at least 46 people in Iraq on Sunday.
The violence was in predominantly Sunni areas north of Baghdad. The single deadliest attack was in central Baquba where a car bomb killed 11 people.
There were also explosions, shootings, and casualties in Salaheddin Province and in Nineveh Province, where four attacks killed six soldiers and two civilians.
Attacks have killed more than 3,600 people since the beginning of 2013, and more than 1,000 in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008.
(Featured Photo: Car Bomb in Baquba on Sunday — Reuters)
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Egypt: Report — Military Uses Clerics to Convince Soldiers to Kill Protesters
Using video evidence, The New York Times claims the Egyptian military is using Muslim scholars in a propaganda campaign to persuade soldiers and policemen that they have a religious duty to obey orders to use deadly force against supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi.
“When somebody comes who tries to divide you, then kill them, whoever they are,” Ali Gomaa, the former mufti appointed under President Hosni Mubarak, is seen telling soldiers in a video made by the military’s Department of Moral Affairs. “Even with the sanctity and greatness of blood, the prophet permits us to fight this,” he said in the video, likening opponents of the military takeover — implicitly, the Brotherhood — to an early Islamic sect that some scholars considered to be infidels, and thus permissible to kill. Mr. Gomaa later said the military had shown the video to troops and riot police officers across Egypt.
In a video against the same backdrop, Salem Abdel Galil, a former senior scholar in the ministry that oversaw mosques under Mr. Mubarak, appeared to say such opponents were “aggressors who have to repent to God” They are “not honorable Egyptians,” he said.
“If they continue like this, then they are neither recognized by religion, nor by reason or logic,” Dr. Abdel Galil said, adding that “to use weapons when needed” against such foes was the duty of the armed forces. “The heart is at ease about this,” he said.
In a Facebook entry on Sunday night, Abdel Galil said that he was responding to questions about “terrorists who attack the military” and that the video was edited to distort his answer.
Israeli Troops Kill 3 Palestinians in Raid on Refugee Camp
Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinians and wounded more than 12 in an early morning raid on Monday in a refugee camp near Jerusalem, Palestinian medical sources have said.
Now @AFP reporting three #Palestinians killed in clashes with #Israeli troops who entered Qalandia refugee camp, according to local medics
— Sara Hussein (@sarahussein) August 26, 2013
Witnesses said Israeli armored jeeps, seeking to arrest a suspect, entered the Qalandiya camp at around 3 a.m. and were met by stone-throwing residents. The Israeli forces responded with gunfire, leaving the camp before daybreak.
An Israeli police spokesman said Palestinians who threw firebombs and rocks at the troops.
Israeli forces have killed 13 Palestinians in the West Bank this year, compared with three killed in the same period in 2012.
