Siege Prompts Self-Criticism in Arab Media
By SUSAN SEVAREID
Associated Press Writer
www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-arabs-russia-school-seizu
re,0,2471259.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

September 4, 2004, 12:37 PM EDT
...

"Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture,"
Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, wrote in
his daily column published in the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under
the headline, "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!"

Al-Rashed ran through a list of recent attacks by Islamic extremist
groups -- in Russia, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen -- many of which
are influenced by the ideology of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of
the al-Qaida terror network.

"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential
buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," he
wrote. Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless "we admit the
scandalous facts," rather than offer condemnations or justifications.

"The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."