LAHORE: Extremist organisations like militant Islamic State group (Daesh) and Hizbullah have no linkages and association with Islam.

Pakistan Ulema Council chairman Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi said this while talking to media persons at Allama Iqbal International Airport before his departure to Dubai here on Sunday.

Extremist and terrorist organisations are indiscriminately killing innocent people in Syria and Iraq without any distinction of religion and sect, he told a questioner.

He also categorically said that until and unless burning issues of Palestine, Kashmir, Syria and Iraq are not resolved, peace could not be restored in the world.

Condemning the recent killings in France and Germany as sheer barbarism, he said terrorism and extremism should not be associated to any particular religion and piece of land as it had emerged as a global issue.

“No one becomes representative of any particular religion by employing name-code of that religion.”

He argued that those who attempted to attack Masjid-i-Nabvi could not be considered as faithfuls. “Terrorists are simply enemies of peace and mankind and peaceful forces of the world should get united against them,” he added.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2016