THE TELEGRAPH: World powers have reacted with outrage to a call by Colonel Gaddafi of Libya for holy war on the "obscene, infidel" state of Switzerland.
Col Gaddafi took a long-running and personal feud with the historically neutral European country to new heights with a speech in which he attacked the ban on new minarets on mosques approved by a Swiss referendum last year.
"Those who destroy God's mosques deserve to be attacked through jihad, and if Switzerland was on our borders, we would fight it," he said. "Jihad against Switzerland, against Zionism, against foreign aggression is not terrorism."
He called for a boycott of Switzerland by the Islamic world. "Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Mohammad, God and the Koran," he said.
"The masses of Muslims must go to all airports in the Islamic world and prevent any Swiss plane landing, to all harbours and prevent any Swiss ships docking, inspect all shops and markets to stop any Swiss goods being sold."
Col Gaddafi's typically eccentric row with Switzerland, which began when one of his sons was arrested along with his wife because of allegations of abuse by two members of his domestic staff, has come as a blow to western powers.
They thought that they had managed to tame the Libyan leader after he voluntarily gave up a basic nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and agreed a compensation deal over the Lockerbie bombing.
Yesterday, both the European Union and the United Nations hit out at his speech. >>> Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent | Friday, February 26, 2010
