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Arab League leaders denounces terror acts committed in name of Islam

Monday, 25 July 2016 6:08 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 26 July 2016 7:21 AM ]

A picture taken on December 24, 2015, shows a general view of the Arab League foreign ministers attending an emergency meeting in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. (AFP photo)

Arab leaders speaking at the opening of the Arab League summit in the Mauritanian capital have strongly denounced terror acts committed by terrorist groups in the name of Islam.

Speaking at the opening session in Nouakchott on Monday, Egypt's Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said that terrorists across the Mideast and elsewhere were distorting Islam's message of peace.

"We must recast the religious language that terrorist elements exploit to their own ends to sow terror, death and destruction," he said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Premier Sherif, speaking on behalf of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said that the league should devise "an Arab strategy of struggle against terrorism".

Meanwhile, Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who is hosting the summit, also censured the "blind violence of terrorists."

This comes as the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which is mainly based in Iraq and Syria, has expanded its terrorists activities across the world.

The 22-nation Arab summit, originally scheduled for two full days, was set to discuss the ongoing crises and tensions in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Palestine.

The summit, however, was cut back to a single day due to the absence of the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. An Arab League source said that President Sisi stayed home because of "a busy domestic schedule" while Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s no-show was reportedly due to "health reasons."

The developments come as some members of the Arab League, notably Saudi Arabia, are accused of financing and supporting Daesh and some other terrorist groups.

The Arab League has also been rocked by internal divisions, with tensions rising in recent months.

In Mid-July, a source within the Syrian Foreign Ministry said that it was not interested in returning to the Arab League as long as the group was dominated by some regimes that conspired against Damascus and the Arab world.

Syria's membership in the Arab League was suspended in 2011 after the onset of the foreign-backed Takfiri militancy in the country.

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