Pope's comments 'may incite violence'

Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced the Pope’s recent remarks about Muslim holy war as Egypt warned that the Pope’s comments could incite violence between Muslims and Christians.

“We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology – not through his officials – to Muslims for this false reading (of Islam),” Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers in his prayers sermon last night.