Saddam criticizes Arabs for stand on Afghanistan

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- President Saddam Hussein criticized Arab nations on Tuesday for doing little to oppose the U.S. air campaign against Afghanistan.

"I am sorry for the stand governments of Arab countries have adopted toward Afghanistan because it does not please Muslims," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted Saddam as saying.

His comments followed an Oct. 10 meeting of foreign ministers representing the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which failed to condemn the attacks on Afghanistan.

Saddam said he felt the "sorrow" non-Arab Muslims felt at the "weak stands" taken by Arab Muslim nations, who should be examples to follow. Few Muslims in Afghanistan are Arab.

Iraq has denied any relation to Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, though a newspaper owned by Saddam's eldest son recently praised bin Laden.

Also Tuesday, Iraqi religious leaders issued a fatwa, or religious edict, banning Muslims from "helping blasphemers."

The statement, which was carried by the official news agency, warned Islamic nations "not to fall into the trap ... set during the aggression against Iraq in 1991," a reference to those that sided with the United States during the Gulf War.