TEHRAN, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Influential Muslim clerics in Iran allegedly issued a new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of nuclear weapons against its enemies.
It is the first time the hard-line spiritual leaders have questioned the traditional stance that Sharia law forbade the use of nuclear weapons, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The newspaper said one senior mullah now says it is "only natural" to have nuclear bombs as a "countermeasure" against other nuclear powers, thought to be a reference to the United States and Israel.
The pronouncement came from Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of the ultra-conservative Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, who is widely regarded as the cleric closest to Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newspaper said.
The comments appeared on Rooz, an Internet newspaper run by members of Iran's fractured reformist movement, which picked them up from remarks by Mohsen Gharavian reported on the media agency IraNews, the newspaper said.
