(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The leader of the Shia group Hezbollah said yesterday that Islamist terrorists had done more harm to Islam than any cartoon or book, a reference to the attack by suspected militants on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said what he called "takfiri terrorist groups" had insulted Islam more than "even those who have attacked the messenger of God through books depicting the Prophet or making films depicting the Prophet or drawing cartoons of the Prophet."
Takfiri is a term for a Muslim who accuses others, including another Muslim, of apostasy. Hezbollah considers members of ultra-hardline Sunni-dominated groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State to be takfiris.
Twelve people were killed in the presumed Islamist militant attack on Wednesday at the weekly Charlie Hebdo, which has often lampooned Islam and other religions as well as politicians and other public figures.
Cartoons in Charlie Hebdo have provoked angry reactions from some Muslims. Footage of the killings at the paper's offices showed gunmen shouting "we have avenged the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him)".
Nasrallah was speaking to supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs via video link to commemorate the birthday of Prophet. Hezbollah, which Washington describes as a terrorist group, functions as a political party that is part of the Lebanese government. It also has a military wing that has sent hundreds of fighters to support President Bashar Al Assad's forces in Syria.
Meanwhile, the head of Britain's MI5 Security Service warned yesterday that Al Qaeda militants in Syria were plotting attacks to inflict mass casualties in the West, possibly against transport systems or "iconic targets". Speaking after gunmen killed 12 people in an assault on a French satirical newspaper, MI5 boss Andrew Parker warned a strike on the United Kingdom was highly likely.
"A group of core Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass casualty attacks against the West," Director General Parker said in a rare public speech at MI5 headquarters in London. His last public speech was in October 2013.
In the speech, planned before the killings in Paris, Parker said seasoned Al Qaeda militants in Syria aimed to "cause large-scale loss of life, often by attacking transport systems or iconic targets" in the West.
Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people by attacking the United States with hijacked passenger planes on September 11, 2001. Militants inspired by the group killed 52 commuters in London on July 7, 2005 with suicide bombs.
Al Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in 2011, and the threat posed by the network to the West seemed to recede in recent years.
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