Clerics strip Omar

Telegraph reported A crowd of 600 Afghan clerics gathered in front of an historic mosque yesterday to strip the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar of his claim to religious authority, in a ceremony that provided a significant boost to the presidency of Hamid Karzai. The declaration, signed by 1,000 clerics from across the country, is an endorsement of the US-backed programme of reconciliation with more moderate elements of the Taliban movement that Karzai has been pursuing ahead of the country's first parliamentary elections, due in September. Symbolically, the ulema shura, or council of clerics, was held at the Blue Mosque in the southern city of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban movement. As afternoon prayers approached yesterday, some 600 clerics, heavily bearded and wearing substantial turbans and flowing robes, from 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, entered the blue-domed mosque's main courtyard, flanked by heavily armed guards. With the assembled clerics seated on the marble floor before him, the head of shura, Maulvi Abdullah Fayaz, said: "Karzai is elected through free and fair election and religiously we have to obey his orders. None of the orders of the previous Emirs, including Mullah Omar, is accepted." He said that following the Taliban, "accepting their orders and through their orders killing people and destabilising the country", was "against sharia law". A list of 13 proclamations was read out during the three-hour ceremony.

Captain Ed: blogged In the Muslim world, as opposed to Catholocism and some Protestant sects, the lack of a central authority for reference and authentication has made it difficult to declare clerics as radical or extreme. Clerics attract their own followings, and have the authority to make their own proclamations, and even the opposition of a number of other clerics doesn't necessarily negate the actions of the single cleric. However, when hundreds of clerics band together to make a declaration, it does carry some weight. That's exactly what has happened in Afghanistan, where 600 Muslim clerics announced that Mullah Omar has been stripped of all spiritual authority, with another 400 signatories from other regions.

Michael Isikoff might want to stay out of Kabul as well. One of the proclamations specifically called for the arrest of all the Newsweek staff responsible for the false report of Gitmo guards desecrating the Qu'ran. Apparently the media push to circle the wagons around Isikoff and Newsweek by screeching about Guantanamo hasn't even fooled the Afghanis.

Arthur Chrenkoff has a LOT of good information about the spread of Democracy in Afganistan

James Joyner blogged As big a breathrough as stripping Omar is, the second part of the declaration is arguably more important. The recognition that secular authority, not the religious hierarchy, is the legitimate source of worldly law is the first giant step toward modernity. It was this crucial move, following the Thirty Years War, that began the transformation of the West into the epicenter of scientific, economic, and and political dominance.

Pejman Yousefzadeh blogged And while we have mere symbolism here, it does show the degree to which the Afghan people are disgusted with the Taliban--and the degree to which they are willing to help American forces get rid of them. I imagine that the same degree of hostility exists against al Qaeda itself.

This is good news, particularly the additional items Arthur Chrenkoff provided.