John Rossomando • Feb 14, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4293/radical-syrian-deletes-suicide-bombing-fatwa
A radical Syrian cleric who spent January on a U.S. fundraising tour
has erased a 2001 fatwa endorsing suicide bombings from his website.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) uncovered
Sheikh Mohammad Rateb Nabulsi's fatwa last month, during his visit to
raise money for two Syrian-American groups. Nabulsi visited 15 cities
around the country throughout January as part of the "Syria: A Nation In Need" tour that was co-sponsored by the Syrian American Council (SAC) and Shaam Relief.
Nabulsi's April 23, 2001 fatwa
drew a distinction between those who commit suicide out of a sense of
despair and the "Fedayeen" who "presents himself as a sacrifice for his
religion and his Umma."
He extensively cited two prior fatwas written by other radical
clerics in support of his position. Nabulsi also said that "all the
Jewish people [in Israel] are combatants" who can be targeted by suicide
bombers.
"They do not have a career that a military rank does not encounter:
doctor, pilot, engineer, for example, is a tank commander. Every
civilian, citizen," he wrote. "They do not have a regular army; they
have a reserve army, and all the people can fight, so this is
essentially an entirely aggressive entity from A to Z. This is the
Sharia ruling."
The fatwa was still available on his Arabic website when the IPT report was published Jan. 14. A more recent review of his website revealed that it had been taken down.
Evidence
of the fatwa's existence can be found in an Arabic Google search. Its
title appears in the search, but clicking on the link leads to a blank
page. The entire fatwa can still be found on an Arabic discussion group page.
There seems to be no explanation for the fatwa's disappearance. If
Nabulsi's views have evolved, and he no longer believes that suicide
bombings can be justified theologically, he has not said so. Rather,
this appears to be a poor attempt to hide his own radical ideology.
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