Vatican creates anti-terrorist units after threats from Al Qaeda
By Ed West
13 June 2008

The Vatican has created two new anti-terrorism units to prevent possible Al Qaeda attacks, the Holy See's director of security has announced.

A "rapid intervention group" and an "anti-sabotage department" have been established as sub-units of the Vatican's gendarme corps, according to corps director Domenico Giani. He added that the Vatican also has begun closer collaboration with Interpol.

The Vatican and Benedict XVI have been named as potential targets by Islamic terror groups several times in the past three years.

In Holy Week this year Italian security officials said they took seriously a message from Osama bin Laden accusing the Pope of launching a "new Crusade" against Muslims.

The message, attributed to the Saudi terrorist, was addressed to "the intelligent ones in the European Union" and posted on an extremist website. In it the speaker blamed the Vatican for the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, which he called "the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role".

In September 2006 an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group vowed a war against the "worshippers of the cross" after the Pope made his controversial speech in Regensburg in which he quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus linking Islam with violence.

In August 2005 Spanish police arrested a man after threats by Al Qaeda against the Holy See. The Arabic manuscript contained the heading "Operation Vatican".

The document, sent to the Spanish daily newspaper ABC, said: "The Iraq war has won the Vatican's support for the capitalist countries, all for Iraqi oil. Those authorities will reap what they have sown with their support, and for those they have killed."

Although the Vatican downplayed the threats, it did increase security, adding metal detectors for all visitors to St Peter's Basilica and attendees at papal events. The gendarme corps have since been deployed at Vatican territories outside Vatican City, in particular at Rome's patriarchal basilicas.

Mr Giani told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the rapid-intervention group would identify high-risk situations and prepare immediate action to neutralise possible threats. The anti-sabotage unit is specially trained to identify and react to suspicious packages or objects, he said.