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CNN Sunday Morning

Lebanese Reaction to U.S. Strikes in Afghanistan

Aired October 14, 2001 - 09:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Unrest this morning in Lebanon. Gunfire boomed across southern Lebanon as Hezbollah guerrillas fired at Israeli war planes. There are no reports of injuries. Lebanon certainly no stranger to gunfire and violence and terrorism.

But CNN's Beirut bureau chief Brent Sadler reports that there's a different attitude these days.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Friday in Beirut, far away from the United States, and Muslims in Lebanon crowd into mosques for their holy day of prayer. 34-year-old Akmed Salhad (ph) is married with four children. He is a Sunni Muslim, and like many other Muslims in Beirut, a city once known as the terror capitol of the world, he says he's deeply troubled -- troubled about terrorist attacks and international repercussions.

Islamic theology experts have no doubt that terrorists who attacked American should be regarded as non-Muslims, or agents of evil.

SHEIKH ABDEL AMIR QABALAH, VP, HIGH ISLAMIC SHIITE COUNCIL (through translator): I consider this to be an infiltration of Islam. I consider this to be defaming Islam. If he were a true Muslim, then he has sold his mind to the devil.

SADLER: The rise of fundamentalism over the past 20 years, though, has put unprecedented pressure on the traditionalists.

RIDWAN AL-SAYYID, PROFESSOR, ISLAMIC STUDIES: We Muslim believers, we have to reclaim Islam from them. They have now about 20 to 30 person sympathizers under Muslim rule. It is a distortion of tradition and distortion of Islamic theology and distortion of Islamic culture.

SADLER: Analysts also say fundamentalism needs to mix with a political catalyst in order to create terrorism. In the Middle East, for example, says Lebanon's Druze leader, the Palestinian struggle for a state is just one such catalyst which partly motivates Osama bin Laden.

But the causes of terrorism are far more complex than the behavior of just one man. WALID JUMBLATT, DRUZE LEADER: There is a basic problem between the Muslims, Arabs and the West and America. This problem cannot be solved by sending ships or aircraft carriers, even if they kill bin Laden tomorrow morning.

SADLER: Even though Beirut has remained quiet since the start of U.S. led attacks on Afghanistan, schisms within modern day Islam are being reflected by many people here.

JUMANA NASSER, STUDENT IN ISLAMIC STUDIES: Because you cannot punish a whole country, even though we don't agree with the Taliban's way of living their Islam. But you cannot expect anyone, not only Muslims, to accept the principle of when attacking a whole country because you're looking for one person. I mean, it's terrible.

SADLER: A dilemma which is faced by all.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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