Portland, OR - USA: Muslim Leader Reacts To Bin Laden Death

"The fear right now is his loyal servants, Osama bin Laden's, are they going to try and emulate him and or take revenge or even misuse this to say this was an attack against a Muslim leader?"

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: KPTV | FOX 12
By KPTV | May 2, 2011

Terror Expert Says Death Probably Won't Affect War In Afghanistan

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A local Muslim leader is speaking out about the death of Osama bin Laden.

Harris Zafar is the spokesman for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a Portland-based international Muslim reform group.

He said he received dozens of emails and texts Sunday night from Muslims around the world reacting to bin Laden's death.

Zafar said Muslim Americans have waited a long time for this day, but are also concerned about what Muslim extremist groups might do next.


"The fear right now is his loyal servants, Osama bin Laden's, are they going to try and emulate him and or take revenge or even misuse this to say this was an attack against a Muslim leader?" Zafar said. "It's a little too soon to tell -- it's been just 12 hours since the announcement's been made -- what's about to happen."

Grant Farr, a terrorism expert and professor at Portland State University, said the al-Qaida network is well-funded and well-organized.

He said bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in the mid-1980s and that's where he started al-Qaida. Farr said bin Laden ramped up his campaign against the West in the 1990s and that culminated in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001.

While the death of the al-Qaida leader is significant symbolically, Farr says he doubts it will have much effect on the war in Afghanistan.

He was also surprised at the location of the compound where bin Laden was hiding -- a luxurious mansion in Abbottabad, about 30 miles north of the Pakistani capitol, Islamabad, and not an undeveloped area that had long been suspected.



Read original post here: Muslim Leader Reacts To Bin Laden Death