- In a rambling address on Thursday, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi called for holy war against Switzerland. The bizarre pronouncement belongs to a running feud between the two nations, but the Swiss Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
- “Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression,” Gadhafi suggested at a meeting in Libya to mark the birth of the prophet Muhammad. “Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran.”
- The Swiss and Libyan governments have been at odds since 2008, when Swiss police arrested Ghadafi’s son Hannibal and Hannibal’s wife, the model Aline Skaf. The couple was charged with abusing servants in a luxury hotel. They were quickly released on bail, and officials soon dropped charges, but Libya responded by withdrawing billions of dollars from Swiss banks, cutting off oil supplies, denying visas and recalling diplomats.
- He also claimed he wasn’t calling for terrorism. Al-Qaida-style terrorism was a “kind of crime and a psychological disease,” he said, but insisted, “there is a big difference between terrorism and jihad, which is a right to armed struggle.”
