The Palestinian militant group Hamas has joined politicians and religious leaders in the Middle East by condemning the killing of 22 civilians in Saudi Arabia, blamed on al Qaeda, saying it upset regional security and gave Islam a bad name.
"Hamas expresses its strong condemnation and regret for the sinful attack," the Palestinian Islamist group said today. "We stress these actions harm the security of our countries, harms its stability and harms national and Islamic interests."
Israel , the target of Hamas car and suicide bomb attacks, claims the militant group receives millions of dollars each year from Saudi Arabia.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak condemned what he called a "criminal act" by a "misguided group".
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said: "We do not understand these acts because they terrorise our Arab societies and (harm) their stability and innocent lives."
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said: "This kind of terrorist act and the promotion of immoral methods are not compatible with any international norms."
Kuwait said the killings in next-door Saudi Arabia were "ugly criminal acts" condemned by Islamic Sharia law. "They serve only the enemies of Islam," a cabinet statement said. Both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim leaders said al Qaeda tactics went against Islamic rules.
Kuwait's Shia clerics called the Khobar attack a "heinous crime" promoted by "bad religious scholars who do not understand anything about the religion of God."
Egypt's officially banned, but tolerated Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, called it a "loathsome crime... outside the rulings of Islam" which only helped the "Zionist-American project which targets Islam".