JEDDAH, 10 November 2003 — The world was united yesterday in condemning the Riyadh suicide bombing that killed 17 people and wounded 200 others in the second week of the fasting month of Ramadan.
ARAB LEAGUE
“The secretary-general condemns in the strongest terms the criminal and terrorist actions which have no purpose except threatening stability, planning evil and terrorizing and killing civilians without heeding any religion or creed or caring about the sanctity of the month of Ramadan,” a spokesman for Amr Moussa said in a statement.
GCC
The Gulf Cooperation Council said it rejected “all acts of terrorism... and is determined to pursue its efforts to counter and eradicate this phenomenon.”
EGYPT
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said: “Egypt strongly deplores this attack and stands firmly against any terrorist attack.” He said he was “convinced that such acts do not represent the welcoming Saudi people” and expressed hope that “the brotherly Saudi people and the Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia will no longer be victims” of such attacks.
LEBANON
President Emile Lahoud said: “Lebanon is totally opposed to terrorism and roundly condemns the attacks which periodically target its brother country Saudi Arabia.”
“Criminal acts like these...cannot be the work of real Muslims, because the Islamic religion forbids the killing of peaceful people,” Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri said in a statement. “They are the work of those who are the enemies of religion and humanity alike.”
SYRIA
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad called Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, to denounce the attack. Assad “expressed his condolences for the families of the victims and wished the wounded a speedy recovery.”
IRAN
“Killing innocent people, including women and children, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, is immoral, inhuman and against religious beliefs,” state television quoted Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi as saying. He called for an international consensus against terrorism.
PAKISTAN
The Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said the attack showed that “no country in the world is safe from the dark designs of terrorists.” He called on the international community to step up the fight against “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations until this menace is eliminated.”
BRITAIN
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the attack an act of “hideous barbarity”. “These murderers have shown absolute contempt for Islam and for people of all nations,” he said in a statement.
“This was indiscriminate murder of men, women and children of various nationalities during the holy month of Ramadan.”
RUSSIA
“Moscow strongly condemns this major act of terror,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We see this as another crime committed by the global terrorist network. The manner in which this attack was carried out suggests that behind this barbarian act were those for whom neither morals nor religion exist.
“What happened in Riyadh once again proves the necessity of joint efforts by the entire international community to combat terror. We are ready to increase cooperation with Saudi Arabia in this direction.”
FRANCE
France’s Foreign Ministry called it an “odious attack”.
GERMANY
“We are horrified by this despicable act of terror,” said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. “The attack shows once again what a massive threat international terrorism represents. This threat has to be decisively battled by a broad-based international anti-terror coalition.”
BANGLADESH
“We are very concerned about the blasts,” Foreign Minister Morshed Khan told reporters. “They have further implications specially because they happened during Ramadan when Muslims converge on that country for Umrah.”
