Via JPost:

Saudi religious leader Sheikh Ayed al-Qarni called this week for all Muslim scholars to issue a joint fatwa (religious ruling) against Syrian President Bashar Assad and his government, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV channel reported.

Al-Qarni told the pan-Arab news channel that the Council of Senior Scholars in Saudi Arabia and Al-Azhar University in Egypt should condemn the Syrian regime, and even said that assassinating Assad would be justified.

The sheikh said that the Syrian regime, in attacking civilians, was acting counter to Islam. He said he had spoken to refugees from Syria in Jordan, who had told him about the atrocities. In addition, he continued, the Syrian army had forced people to bow down to a picture of Assad.

“That is why all Syrians have to fight this regime. The Syrian youth should take up arms against the regime,” he told Al-Arabiya.

While Assad’s Alawite sect dominates the country’s regime, the Sunni opposition has the support of other Sunni Arab states. Sunni clerics in Syria and elsewhere have called for jihad against Assad’s regime as the opposition has attracted foreign fighters.