No welcome home sign for bin Laden

Sometimes rebuttals can be found in unexpected places.

Last Sunday, the mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Osama bin Laden, appeared on an Arab television report to assert that "God (Allah) has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America."

Not so, says the chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council of Saudi Arabia, the land of bin Laden's birth that has since denounced him. Shaikh Salih bin Muhammad Al-Luheidan, a prominent Islamic scholar, was quoted in a monthly newsletter from the Saudi Embassy in Washington: "Those who commit such crimes are the worst of people. Anyone who thinks that any Islamic scholar will condone such acts is totally wrong.

"Aggression, injustice and gloating over the kind of crime that we have seen are totally unacceptable, and forbidden in Islam."

Sen. John McCain was reported to have said after the terrorist assault that maybe God would have mercy on the terrorists "because we sure won't." Looks like Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia won't either. Osama bin Laden, you can't go home again.

Richard Halloran

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