BEIRUT: Lebanon’s top political and religious figures strongly condemned Monday ISIS’s slaughter of over a dozen Egyptian Copts in Libya and offered condolences to Egyptian officials.
The 21 Egyptian Copts, kidnapped in Libya, were confirmed dead Sunday after ISIS released a video showing their beheading.
The video was broadcasted on a website associated with the group showing ISIS militants forcing victims to kneel on a beach before executing them. The killing was denounced by Lebanese leaders from across the political spectrum, who warned that the region is under threat from extremist groups.
Hariri“No words can adequately express the extent to which we condemn the carnage witnessed on Libya’s coast [which] claimed the lives of 21 Egyptian citizens,” said Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
Describing the act as a “bloody” killing, Hariri paid his condolences to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, in a statement Monday.
Hariri said that the 21 victims had been caught in the grip of “demons” terrorizing countries that witnessed uprisings during the Arab Spring.
The former premier, who said he believed Egypt would overcome the threat of extremism through the unity of its people, said that ISIS was engaging in “one of the dirtiest wars, which targets the values of Islam and the standing of Muslims in the world.”
HezbollahIn his televised speech Monday during an annual ceremony to commemorate Hezbollah’s martyrs, the party chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah also offered condolences for the killing of the 21 Copts.
“We offer our condolences to the Egyptian people, government and the Coptic church,” Nasrallah said. “And we express our sadness for this deep misfortune that has befallen on them.”
He said the incident underscored how takfiris pose a threat to all countries in the region and to Islam, adding that a national counterterrorism strategy should be adopted in Lebanon to confront the jihadi threat.
“Today, the world has given in to the fact that this takfiri movement ‘ISIS’ constitutes a threat to the world and the region,” Nasrallah said.
Salam Through solidarity, Egyptians will be able to face the danger of terrorism, Prime Minister Minister Tammam Salam stressed Monday.
“This heinous crime that targeted innocent people because of their religion demonstrates the level of immorality inherent to those who possess this criminal and extremist ideology,” Salam wrote to Sisi.
“The Egyptian people will overcome this ordeal under the leadership and wisdom of President Sisi.”
BerriSisi also received another telegram from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reviling the act and calling for a “unified” battle against terrorists.
“This crime is a continuation of the multiple crimes committed [by ISIS] against citizens and military [personnel] in the Sinai and inside Egypt,” the cable read.
“We should all feel the danger [ISIS] poses on the stability of our Arab [political] system and the lives of the Arab people,” Berri added.
Foreign Ministry Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement denouncing attacks in Libya, Saturday’s shootings in Copenhagen and the killing of three Muslims in the U.S. state of North Carolina last week.
“The Foreign Ministry condemns the recent series of terrorist actions that targeted innocent citizens from all over the world who belong to various religions and nationalities,” the statement said. “Those committing them possess a takfiri ideology. Their barbaric actions have no color, no religion and no boundaries.”
SinioraFormer Prime Minister and head of the Future Movement bloc Fouad Siniora denounced the killings as “a crime against all humanity.”
“The execution by this so-called ISIS of a group of innocent Egyptian Copts is a savage, barbaric act that has nothing to do with human values, Islam or Muslims, not even the law of the jungle,” Siniora said.
JumblattSisi also received a message from Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, who condemned the attack and offered condolences to the victims’ families.
“This terrorist crime reconfirms that terrorism does not discriminate between citizens and does not hesitate to target innocents,” Jumblatt said in the message, according to a statement released by his media office.
DerianChristian-Muslim unity is vital now more than ever to thwart the “sectarian conspiracy” being exploited by extremists, Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Abdel-Latif Derian said.
“The objective of the execution of Egyptian Coptic citizens was meant to incite strife between Muslims and Coptic Christians,” Derian commented in a statement.
The mufti, who deplored the “brutal crime,” stressed that the awareness of Christians about this underlying agenda was “more powerful than these terrorist acts.”
RaiLebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai denounced the crime as a “monstrous and cowardly act that any human being from any religion would reject,” in a statement issued by his media office.
Rai, who is on a trip to the Vatican, offered condolences to Tawadros and Egypt’s Copts, calling on the international community to boost counterterrorism efforts.
HasanThe current developments in the region require Muslims and Christians to stand together, Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Naim Hasan said in a statement.
Hasan called for all to adhere to the values of religious tolerance, stressing the need to act with wisdom and reject ideologies that threaten coexistence in the Arab world.
GeageaSisi’s decision to react by launching airstrikes on ISIS’ locations in Libya was praised by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.
“The least that can be said is that ISIS is inhumane,” Geagea declared in a statement.
The LF head also telephoned Tawadros to offer his condolences, according to a separate statement.
GemayelKataeb Party leader Amine Gemayel echoed Geagea’s praise of the Egyptian military response to the beheadings.
“This massacre should constitute a shock that will mobilize the international conscience [community], and save the region from the clutches of terrorism and extremism,” Gemayel cabled Sisi, according to a statement.
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