Doha: Renowned Sunni Scholar Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi on Friday slammed Iran and Hezbollah for supporting the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, and termed them "fanatics" and bunch of "liars". He also called Hezbullah and army of devils, at the same time adding that he was not against all Shiites.
"I kept calling for years (for efforts) to bridge the gap between sects, and traveled to Iran during the era of former President
Mohammad Khatami (but) these fanatics (in Iran) and hard-liners want to disempower the Sunnis. They deceived me and deceived many others like me by saying that they too want to bridge the differences", Qaradawi said at a rally in Doha late Friday.
"Years ago, I defended Hassan Nasrallah, who has named his party Hezbollah, although it is indeed a party of idols and party of devils who are defending Assad", he added.
"Several years ago, I stood against the great ulema and scholars in Saudi Arabia, urging them to support Hezbollah, but Saudi sheikhs were more mature and more visionary than me, because they knew the (Iranians and Hezbollah) for being liars", he said.
"Iran is pushing forward arms and men (to back the Syrian regime), so why do we stand idle?" he said, branding Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which means the party of God in Arabic, as the "party of Satan."
"The leader of the party of the Satan comes to fight the Sunnis... Now we know what the Iranians want... They want continued massacres to kill Sunnis," Qaradawi said.
"How could 100 million Shiites (worldwide) defeat 1.7 billion (Sunnis)?" he exclaimed, "only because (Sunni) Muslims are weak", he said.
"Every Muslim trained to fight and capable of doing that (must) make himself available to support the Syrian fighters", he said.
He said there should be support for the Syrian people with missiles, tanks and aircraft. "The Sunnis must stand against them," and added that "we are not against all the Shiites and Alawites."
Hezbollah, a close ally of Iran and the Syrian regime, is openly engaged in the fight against the rebels in Syria. Created after the Iranian revolution of 1979, Hezbullah is an extremist Shiite Muslim group. It has close links with Iran and is active especially in Lebanon.
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