CAIRO – Brussels airport attacks that left 26 killed and at least 130 more wounded have been immediately condemned by Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s most prestigious center of learning, as violating “the tolerant teachings of Islam,” urging international cooperation to confront terrorism.

“Al-Azhar strongly condemns these terrorist attacks. These heinous crimes violate the tolerant teachings of Islam,” the Cairo-based Al-Azhar said in a statement cited by Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, March 22.

“If the international community does not unite to confront this epidemic, the corrupt will not stop from committing heinous crimes against the innocent.”

Early Tuesday morning, March 22, two terrorist attacks ripped through Brussels, Belgium.

An explosion at the city’s main airport and at part of the Metro system left at least 26 people dead and 126 wounded.

The blasts at the ‪‎Brussels airport and metro station occurred four days after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant in November militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Belgian police and combat troops on the streets had been on alert for any reprisal action but the attacks took place in crowded public areas where people and bags are not searched.

Along with Al-Azhar, the Egyptian foreign ministry also condemned the attacks.

“The time has come for the world to make a final stand to deal with the phenomenon of international terrorism,” ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement issued in English.

He called for steps to tackle it at the “financing and ideological levels … and to prevent the recruitment of more individuals by criminal terrorist groups”.