Massive backlash after assassination of Hamas founder

Anti-Israel demonstrations erupted across the Arab world today after Israel assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, with a missile attack outside a Gaza City mosque.

Any hopes for recent Arab moves to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process were drowned in condemnations and shouts for revenge.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who had been using his influence to press ahead with peace efforts, called it “cowardly”.

Asked about its likely impact on the peace process, he replied: “What peace process?”

Mubarak cancelled plans for a few Egyptian legislators to participate in a celebration tomorrow in the Israeli parliament of the 25th anniversary of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. The treaty was the first between Israel and an Arab state.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared three days of mourning for the quadriplegic sheik and said the Israelis had “crossed all red lines”.

His prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, called the killing “one of the biggest crimes that the Israeli government has committed”.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and most influential Islamic movement in the Middle East, issued a warning to all Americans and Israelis.

“There can be no life for the Americans and Zionists in the region,” Akef told the pan-Arabic satellite television Al-Jazeera. “We will not rest until they (Israelis) are expelled from the region.”

While Washington called for calm, Arab politicians denounced it and political analysts warned that the move would only fuel violence.

“This is an embarrassment to Egypt,” said Dia’a Rashwan, an expert on radical Islam with Egypt’s Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

“Egypt was directly involved in bringing Hamas and Jihad closer to the Palestinian authority and bringing about a cease-fire. Targeting Yassin is a direct blow to these efforts.”

The Yemeni Foreign Ministry said all efforts to peacefully resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict collapsed with Yassin’s killing. And Jordan’s prime minister, Faisal al-Fayez, said it jeopardised peace prospects.

Islamist activists offered their congratulations on Yassin’s death – in being killed by Israeli forces, he became a martyr to his cause.

In Saudi Arabia, Islamist lawyer Mohsen al-Awaji said Yassin’s legacy would be an unstoppable movement: “Ahmed Yassin left behind him a school that all regimes and religious institutions are powerless to resist or contain.”

Essam el-Erian, a senior member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, said Yassin had sought martyrdom and received it. “He is not just a symbol for Palestine or Hamas, but for the entire Islamic world, and this assassination will add fuel to the resistance,” he said.

More than 5,000 Sudanese, including Islamic opposition leader Hassan Turabi, converged on the Hamas press office in Khartoum to express their condolences.

In Egypt, about 7,000 students gathered in a spontaneous demonstration in Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, a leading theological school, as soon as word got out of Yassin’s death.

About 3,000 students in Yemen demonstrated at the San’a University campus, accusing the United States of giving “the green light to Israel to assassinate Sheik Ahmed Yassin”.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud predicted Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories would end as its occupation of south Lebanon did in 2000 – with a withdrawal in the face of mounting casualties.

In Kuwait, one of America’s closest allies in the Arab world, the prime minister, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, predicted violence will increase.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said: “The United States urges all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint.”

Other calls for restraint came from Australia, Japan and Norway.