Cleric Says Militants ‘Lured by the Devil’
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MT. ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia — The country’s top cleric told 2 million hajj pilgrims Wednesday that some of Islam’s own sons had been “lured by the devil” to conduct violent attacks on the kingdom and charged that non-Muslims were conspiring against people of the faith.
Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al Sheik, speaking at a mosque near Mt. Arafat, lamented the violence waged by Muslim militants against Saudi Arabia.
“The greatest affliction to strike the nation of Islam came from some of its own sons, who were lured by the devil,” the cleric said. “They have called the nation infidel, they have shed protected blood and they have spread vice on Earth, with explosions and destruction and killing of innocents.”
He pointedly asked of Muslim youth: “How would you meet God? With innocent blood you shed or helped shed?”
He warned them not to be used by enemies of the nation to weaken it.
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