Prayers to destroy U.S.echo across Mideast

In Friday sermons across the Middle East last week, Islamic leaders denounced American "plots" against Muslims and called on Allah to destroy Jews, the United States and its allies, according to the Israel-based Independent Media Review Analysis, or IMRA, a digest of media in the region.

On Yemen television, from the Grand Mosque in Sanaa, Sheik Akram Abd-al-Razzaq al-Ruqeihi prayed:

"O God, destroy the United States and its allies and let them suffer, particularly tyrant and arrogant Americans. O God, destroy the Jews, for they are within your power."

Yesterday, in Yemen, a gunman killed three American missionaries at a Southern Baptist hospital. Officials believe the suspect belonged to a militant cell that may be targeting foreigners and Yemeni public figures perceived to have strayed from the path of Islam.

The Yemeni sheik criticized some Arab and Islamic countries for their secret support, neutrality or silence over purported U.S. plans for the Muslim world.

"You all know that the U.S. designs will not be restricted to Iraq," he said. "Conspiracies are being concocted for other countries with the aim of striking Islam and Muslims, humiliating them, and subjugating them to the tyrant will."

On the Voice of Palestine in Ramallah, the official radio station of the Palestinian Authority, Sheik Muhammad Hussein said the upcoming war "does not only target Iraq, but also the whole region in a wicked plan to redraw the map of the region in accordance with the ambitions of the invading colonialist."

The imam criticized Arab rulers' "negative stand" as unacceptable and urged the Arab nation to stage demonstrations against the "aggressive war."

Saudi Arabia's official television station carried Sheik Sa'ud Bin-Ibrahim al-Shureim's sermon from the holy mosque in Mecca in which he cited the prophet Muhammad's traditions in his exhortation to Muslims to not follow the "examples of Jews and Christians."

"The people of infidelity," the sheik said, "have not scored victory because of their power but because of the empty hearts of Muslims."

In his concluding prayer, the imam said: "O God, strengthen Islam and Muslims, humiliate infidelity and infidels, destroy your enemies, the enemies of Islam, and protect this country."

He continued: "O God, help our mujahedin brothers, who fight for your sake everywhere. O God, help them score victory over your enemy and their enemy."

On Syrian Arab Republic Radio, Sheik Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barakat spoke from Al-Rawdah Mosque in Damascus.

In his concluding prayer, the imam said "O God, help Arabs and Muslims score victory over your enemy and their enemy and destroy the treacherous Zionists and their followers. O God, support our mujahedin brothers in the occupied Arab territories."

On official Iraqi television from Abd-al-Qadir al-Jeilani Mosque in Baghdad, Sheik Abd-al prayed that God would "help the faithful score victory over infidels."

He continued: "O God, help your mujahedin servants in Palestine and Iraq. O God, strengthen them and help them score victory over your enemy and their enemy."

"O God, destroy unjust infidels, criminal Americans, and aggressive Zionist Jews," the Iraqi sheik said. "O God, destroy them, shake the ground under them. O God weaken them, disperse them, down their planes, and drown their ships."

The imam also asked God to help President Saddam Hussein confront infidels and liberate Palestine.

On Qatar state television, an unidentified sheik spoke from Umar Bin-al-Khattab Mosque in Doha.

Concluding, he prayed: "O God, destroy the usurper Jews. O God, shake the ground under them. O God, disperse them and let their plots destroy them. O God, support our weak brothers in Palestine, Kashmir, and elsewhere."