Mosul conference, US failure to divide Muslims

Sheikh Bilal Saeed Shaban, secretary general of the Islamic Unification Movement in Lebanon, in an interview with Taqrib News Agency (TNA) related on the second counter-extremism conference held by Iran’s World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought in the Iraqi city of Mosul stressing that the two-day event revealed US failure to divided different religious groups in the country.

He said,” Mosul conference proved US efforts to divide Iraq and dispersing the different religious groups in the country were all in vain.”

Sheikh Shaban added,” Hundreds of Shia, Sunni, Christian, Kurd, Arab and Turkmen figures were among participants in this conference discussing ways for reconstruction of the city in a bid to return it to normal life and pave the grounds for return of the refugees to their homeland.”

He stressed materialization of the proposals in the first and second Mosul conference and said,” To choose Mosul as the venue of the two-day event stands for prevalence of peace and security in Mosul and stemming of violence, terrorism and extremism whose positive effects will benefit the region for coming years.”

Lebanese senior cleric hailed diversity of languages, complexion and ethnicities in Iraq as an advantage which should be highly valued.

“Should we intend to shut the gates to extremism, we should firstly close the doors to darkness of ignorance” said the secretary general of Islamic Unification Movement in Lebanon denouncing extremism as brainchild of the west.