Egyptian Prez Morsi is Mubarak with beard: Syria

September 04, 2012 00:11

Syria has hit back at Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, saying his Islamist beard is the only thing that distinguishes him from the veteran strongman he replaced after last year's Arab Spring uprising.

Responding to high-profile criticism from Morsi at a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran last week, Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi charged that the Egyptian leader was complicit in the armed revolt rocking his country.

"He is responsible for spilling Syrian blood, as are the Qataris, the Saudis and the Turks," Zohbi said.

"The only difference between him and (ousted strongman Hosni) Mubarak is that he has a beard."

The Syrian government prides itself on its secularism.

The Muslim Brotherhood, for which Morsi successfully ran for Egypt's presidency earlier this year, has long been outlawed in Syria on pain of death. It is one of the most powerful factions within the opposition Syrian National Council.

Morsi caused a storm on Thursday when, on the first visit to Iran by an Egyptian leader in decades, he slammed Syria's regime as "oppressive" and urged support for rebels seeking President Bashar al-Assad's ouster.

« Back to LIVE

TOP STORIES

Kejriwal's aide Bibhav Kumar arrested in Swati Maliwal 'assault' case

Bibhav Kumar was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Goyal who sent him to five-day police custody after the police sought his remand to question him about the incident and to retrieve data from his phone.

Back to back terror attacks in J-K: Ex-sarpanch killed, tourist couple shot at

Terrorists struck at two places in Kashmir on Saturday night, killing a former sarpanch in Shopian and injuring a tourist couple from Rajasthan in Anantnag, two days ahead of Lok Sabha elections in Baramulla.

I dedicate my man of the match award to Dayal: Faf du Plessis

Pacer Yash Dayal kept his cool in a tense final over to seal a 27-run win against Chennai Super Kings and send RCB through to the play-offs.

IPL PIX: Spirited RCB knock out CSK; qualify for play-offs!

A spirited performance from their bowlers saw Royal Challengers Bengaluru outclass Chennai Super Kings by 27 runs to qualify for the play-offs.

Banking industry doyen N Vaghul dies at 88

Veteran banker N Vaghul, who led the transformation of ICICI into a private sector lender, died on Saturday afternoon due to health complications. He was 88. Vaghul took over the reins of ICICI, then a public finance institution, in...