As-Safir, Beirut, Wednesday, 12 March
2003.

Eric
Mueller comments:

THIS Arabic item, though originally credited to Reuters and AFP, is nowhere to be found on the western news sites. It would be well for the US and British authorities to take such warnings in deadly earnest..Arabist Eric Mueller is this website’s expert on Middle
Eastern affairs.

Jordan’s
Islamicists to fight American forces

THE leader of the
Islamic Action Front in Jordan, Shaykh
Hamza Mansour, has said that a large number of the Islamic movements that have been peaceful up to now might take up arms to defend Iraq against a possible American occupation.

Mansour said, “In case of an American occupation, nobody will limit himself to peaceful means. The proof of that is what is going on in Palestine . . . .

In case of a US attack, everyone will call for resistance in every possible way.
This is a patriotic and religious duty
&endash; to resist the American occupation with all available means.”

He said that nothing was worse than occupation, and added that no one is more cowardly than a person who would accept it.

Asked whether “resistance” means that people would resort to violence, Shaykh
Mansour replied, “Nobody is talking about resistance with roses and fragrant spice.”

[Rumsfeld]Mansour said that any American occupation of Iraq will cause extremist groups to flare up that could be more radical that the network of al-Qaeda led by Osama bin
Laden. He also predicted that anti-American sentiments would escalate because of Washington’s plans to occupy
Iraq, and that they will get out of control, involving assaults on innocent US citizens as well as the citizens of other western countries.

In another development, the Islamic
Action Front has criticized meetings between Arab and Israeli leaders that have been mentioned in the news media. It said that such meetings amount to “a stab in the back of our Arab Palestinian people.”

Israeli newspapers on Sunday carried reports about two secret meetings held between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon and King Abdullah of
Jordan last year at which they discussed the expected repercussions for the region of a war on Iraq.

Reuters,
AFP

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The above news item is translated and reproduced without editing other than typographical