Egypt mufti says no to WMD against non-Muslim states

CAIRO (Reuters) - Muslim groups and individuals should not use weapons of mass destruction against non-Muslim countries partly because any attack could also kill Muslims, Egypt's state-appointed Grand Mufti said on Sunday.

He said use of weapons of mass destruction could also threaten states beyond the borders of the targeted country and kill non-combatants -- something that would not be allowed even in a declared war.

But Mufti Ali Gomaa, who issued the ruling days before U.S. President Barack Obama is due to address the Muslim world from Cairo, said there was nothing wrong with Muslim countries acquiring such weapons as a deterrence to potential attackers.

Egypt has U.S. backing for plans to build nuclear power plants but says it has no desire to make atomic bombs.

Cairo has long called for a Middle East free from nuclear weapons, an assertion mainly seen aimed at Israel, the only country in the region believed to have a nuclear arsenal.

"The use by some individuals or groups of weapons of mass destruction against non-Muslim states is not legally permissible," state news agency MENA quoted Gomaa as saying in a fatwa, or Islamic legal ruling.

The only Muslim country known to have atomic weapons is Pakistan. Egypt has poor relations with Iran, an Islamic state that Washington and the West accuses of seeking to build a nuclear weapon, despite Tehran's denials.

Gomaa said that "Islamic countries acquiring weapons like this for deterrence against aggressors is a legitimate quest".

MENA said that Gomaa, Egypt's highest religious legal authority, issued the ruling as a clarification because of competing assertions that using such weapons could be legitimate. He called that suggestion "a lie and a fraud".