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In a recent TV interview, Sunni Mufti of Iraq Rafi' Taha Al-Rifa'i said: "We are not stupid enough to start internal [Sunni] fighting only so that the [Shiite] militias can come and slaughter us." The interview aired on the Egyptian Sada Al-Balad TV channel on December 4, 2014.
Following are excerpts from an interview with Sunni Mufti of Iraq Rafi' Taha Al-rifa'i, which aired on Sada Al-Balad TV on December 4, 2014:
Rafi' Taha Al-Rifa'i: When the Americans decide that a certain group of people are terrorists – that settles it. We accept that they are terrorists. And if they refrain from this with regard to another group, everyone follows suit. as I said in my address at Al-Azhar, our society is not like all those TV channels that tow the American political line. We should not be like an Indian cobra in a basket – whenever the Americans blow the flute for us, we start dancing to their tune like the cobra.
Interviewer: Right.
[…]
Rafi' Taha Al-Rifa'i: When the [ISIS] organization became more powerful and dangerous, the government began to demand that the people of Al-Anbar fight terrorism. What terrorism are we supposed to fight?
Interviewer: The terrorism of ISIS.
Rafi' Taha Al-Rifa'i: Why should we fight ISIS? So that the Iranian IRGC can take over Iraq? The same IRGC that is currently running the operations in Iraq? Let's see what's going on in the areas that the government claims to have liberated from the ISIS. Take Jurf Al-Sakhr, for example. They refer to it as Jurf Al-Nasr ["victory"], because they say that they drove ISIS out of it.
What did the government do with the local population? The first thing it did was to separate the men from the women and children. Nobody knows what happened to the men, and the women and children were left without a roof over their heads. Orchards were bulldozed, and homes and mosques were burned down.
This has repeated itself in each and every city. When you liberated an area, you are expected to invite the people to return to their homes. But they announced right away that the people could only return after a year. Why?
[…]
Am I supposed to fight ISIS and drive it out, so that the [Shiite] militias can come and rape our women?
Interviewer: But you are facing terrorism from both sides…
Rafi' Taha Al-Rifa'i: We rebelled against the government. If the government wants all Iraqis to stand as one, it should act justly. Justice is the basis of governance.
[…]
Our Islam is the religion of compassion, and our nation is the nation of compassion. But whoever talks about the slaughtering [by ISIS] should also talk about the slaughtering and burning by the [Shiite] militias. Why should we look at only one side?
[…]
We have no connection whatsoever with the Islamic State, but we are not stupid enough to start internal [Sunni] fighting, only so that the [Shiite] militias can come and slaughters us.
[…]
Whoever wants to get Iraq back on its feet must remember that Iraq is the spearhead of Islam and the skull of the Arabs!
[…]
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