Arab world waiting to explode, king warns
Pastor Dale Morgan
Arab world waiting to explode, king warns*
From correspondents in Riyadh
December 10, 2006 03:39am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
SAUDI King Abdullah has opened the annual summit of Gulf leaders with a
warning that the Arab world was like a powder keg waiting to explode,
citing the situation in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Lebanon.
"Our Arab region is besieged by a number of dangers, as if it was a
powder keg waiting for a spark to explode," he told the rulers of the
oil-rich monarchies gathered in Riyadh for a two-day meeting.
The Palestinians were reeling from "a hostile and ugly occupation" by
Israel while the international community watched their "bloody tragedy
like a spectator," King Abdullah said.
But "most dangerous for the (Palestinian) cause is the conflict among
brethren," he said in a reference to the differences between Palestinian
president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement
that have hampered efforts to form a unity government.
In Iraq "a brother is still killing his brother", King Abdullah said of
the mounting sectarian violence pitting Sunnis against Shiites.
The King also warned that Lebanon, which was rocked by civil war in
1975-1990, risked sliding into renewed civil strife as a result of the
current standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian camps.
"In Lebanon, we see dark clouds threatening the unity of the homeland,
which risks sliding again into... conflict among the sons of the same
country," he said.
The heads of state of Gulf Cooperation Council members Bahrain, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were present alongside the
Saudi monarch, the first time in several years that all six rulers have
attended the bloc's year-end summit.