Zawahiri (al Qaeda #2) videotape surfaces

"Some U.S. security analysts believe the growing public militancy and confidence of Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders reflects the fact that they may for the first time have full access to nuclear weapons bought or stolen clandestinely from former Soviet republics. . ."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20051206-045020-7899r.htm

Hezbollah boosting ties to al-Qaida claim
By Martin Sieff
Dec 7, 2005, 19:00 GMT (snipped)

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Lebanon and Israel may be facing the prospect of massively increased terror attack threats.

New reports claim that al-Qaida has set up an organizing center in Lebanon and that Iran has boosted its ties to West Bank Palestinian militants, especially Islamic Jihad, who have launched a new suicide bomber campaign against Israel.

The Lebanese Shiite weekly Shiraa, which opposes the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, is claiming this week that al-Qaida has already set up an operational command base in the country.

It also claims that Imad Mughniyeh, the prominent Hezbollah leader, is representing al-Qaida in talks with potential sympathetic Palestinian leaders in the south of the country.

Al-Shiraa said Mughniyeh also met with Jemal Suleiman, head of the Palestinian Ansar Allah, and with Abu Mahujayn, Shehada Jawahr and Khaled Safayn, who lead Palestinian militias in the Bureij camp. . .

The development of a close alliance between al-Qaida and Iran-backed organizations like Hezbollah would mark a dramatic strengthening of anti-American and anti-Israeli guerrilla capabilities in the Middle East. Given Iran`s great and still growing influence among the 60 percent Shiite majority in Iraq, it could also open the way for future operational cooperation between al-Qaida and other insurgent forces in Iraq, and Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary groups there such as Moqtada al-Sadr`s Mahdi Army. . .

'We are looking at a proxy relationship between Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and their major terror masters, who are directly linked to the Iranian Islamic revolution,\' former Israeli military intelligence chief Erin Lerman told The Australian.

The Israeli reports and claims of growing ties between Hezbollah and al-Qaida, or between Hezbollah, backed by Iran, and Islamic Jihad, may also strengthen the hands of Bush administration hawks around Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who remain eager to confront Iran.

But they also may reflect the growing militancy of Iran`s hard-line President Ahmed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in October publicly called for Israel to be \'wiped off the map.\'

Some U.S. security analysts believe the growing public militancy and confidence of Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders reflects the fact that they may for the first time have full access to nuclear weapons bought or stolen clandestinely from former Soviet republics.

It may also reflect the Iranians observing the continuing U.S. inability to make significant progress in scaling down the level of operational violence of the still-spreading insurgency in Iraq.

An Arabic translator said that the caption on the screen in the Zawahiri tape last night read "the sixth war".

(from post 135)

"A few things from UBL's last statement leave me puzzled as well. First, he mentions 9/11...six times. I haven't the foggiest notion if that means anything, just that it seems strange."

Didn't catch that. Maybe if you count the year of the attack as "year 1" it means six years have passed - - not full years, but all or parts of them? (2001-2002-2003-2004-2005-2006) Or it could mean something more (who, what, where, when), but I'd be guessing without any real idea what it might mean (if anything). Also, the 9/11 plot began 6 yrs earlier (Bojinka 1995). So it is not so far-fetched to believe that something underway now was hatched years ago.

One striking coincidence related to "six"is in the Discovery-Times UBL documentary from a couple years ago that has been running this weekend. It shows at the very end the image of the wall map we discussed a couple years ago (the one crudely drawn in what looks like crayon with the fuse-lit bomb on the Canadian border forming the words "The Destruction of America" in Arabic). Seven of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were at that late 1999 Kandahar meeting with UBL (taped for posterity as a AQ promotional video).

The map behind them is only visible for a second or two, and it never pans down to the southernmost states, but from what is seen on the screen, DC is shaded solid green, but not labeled. . .

Also, past history makes this not seem so incredible as it might sound to some. One of the videotapes UBL made prior to the 1998 African embassy bombings had him sitting in front of a world map, and over his shoulder was the horn of Africa. Maybe the 1999 map image with the six states dealt with a follow-on operation to 9/11 that was disrupted in the weeks of late September and October 2001. But I am not in a position to assume that. . .

Also . . .

In his video, Zawahiri specifically mentioned the late 1999 Kandahar meeting.

In the late 1999 Kandahar video, the fuse-lit (nuclear?) bomb on the wall map spells "The Destruction of America". There is a very good reason why Zawahiri last night in his latest tape referenced this meeting.

To emphasize the point, the images in the background of last night's video had the key leaders at that Kandahar meeting (Atef and Atta) each behind one of his shoulders, and the explosive flames of the WTC strike (not a wide shot but a narrow focus on the flames) in the center.

http://www.lauramansfield.com/zawahiri_072706.rm (link to Zawahiri video)

This is *not* coincidence.

http://counterterrorismblog.org/SITE%20Institute%20-%207-27-06%20-%20Zawahiri%20Video%20Speech%20Regarding%20Lebanon%20and%20Gaza%207-06.pdf

A Video Speech from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri Regarding the Events in Lebanon
and Gaza – 7/27/2006

(snip)

" . . . About a year before the two raids of New York and Washington DC the leader, Abu-Hafs (may Allah have mercy on his soul), gave a lecture to a group of trainees about Palestine and the Muslims’ conditions in Qandahar. At the end of the lecture the hero, Muhammad Attah (may Allah have mercy on his soul) stood up and asked the leader with seriousness and enthusiasm “what is the way to defeat the attack on Palestine?” and America knows very well the rest of the story."

http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=36875

Syria, Iran Made Defense Pact Before War

BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 28, 2006

(snipped)

TEL AVIV, Israel — Signs of a regional war engulfing the Middle East began to arise yesterday, with Israel entering its third week of war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Al Qaeda's top deputy promising reprisals.

Israeli strategic planners here say they are closely watching whether Iran will deliver on President Ahmadinejad's promise last week to make an announcement that would neutralize Israel's nuclear threat.

During a briefing yesterday, an Israeli analyst also said it is believed that on June 16, nearly a month before Hezbollah's cross-border raid on Israel, Iran and Syria signed a mutual defense treaty following a meeting of their defense ministers.

The agreement, signed between Iran's defense minister, Mustafa Najjar, and his Syrian counterpart, Hasssan Turkmani, at the time was described as a "military cooperation agreement" by the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The paper quoted a statement from Mr. Turkmani as saying, "We are examining ways to counter these threats, and are establishing a joint front against Israel's threats." According to Israel and America, both countries are funding and facilitating the shipment of missiles to Hezbollah.

The prospect that Iran would come to Syria's defense should Israel bomb Damascus in retaliation for Hezbollah strikes came into focus this week after Iran's ambassador in Beirut promised to counter an Israeli attack on Syria with "full power."

While that statement was disavowed the next day by an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Israeli officials are saying the prospect of Iran becoming directly involved in the war between Israel and Hezbollah was one reason the Jewish state has refrained from striking Syria, whose territory has been a landbridge between Hezbollah and southern Lebanon.

"I think there is some kind of Iranian-Syrian defense treaty," the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Patrick Clawson, said. "We don't know if they would enter the fray, or the details of the treaty. I think Iran's president would very much like to agitate to act on Syria's defense and send Iranian armaments to Syria." Mr. Clawson added that ultimately it was Ayatollah Khamenei's decision to make, not Mr. Ahmadinejad's. . .

(from post 212)

" . . .They want to destabilize Jordan (just like Pakistan). But Jordan is key because its population is mostly Palestinian (60-70%+), not original Jordanian. Zarqa is just outside Amman. And Amman is a half-hour drive from the West Bank. If they can bring Hamas to power a la Black September in 1970, then they have an Islamist state that can destabilize the West Bank and draw on jihadi resources from Anbar. If Amman falls, there will be an al Qaeda allied "state"/entity starting from the Sunni triangle north and west of Baghdad and ending on the outskirts of Jerusalem. UBL made an issue of addressing Bush directly about Zarqawi's body not because they care about him, but they want to destabilize Jordan. Jordanians have mixed feelings about Zarqawi because he crossed the line in targeting that wedding. But in a survey last year, Jordan was one of the places in the Islamic world where UBL is the most popular. It plays into this orchestrated Palestinian/regional crisis that is unfolding and was likely discussed amongst the leaderships of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda. They need a northern front (Hezbollah and Iran in South Lebanon and Syrians near the Golan), a southern front (Gaza and an attempt to turn Sinai in to another Wazirstan), and an eastern front (Hamastan in the West Bank and Jordan)."

http://counterterrorismblog.org/SITE%20Institute%20-%207-27-06%20-%20Zawahiri%20Video%20Speech%20Regarding%20Lebanon%20and%20Gaza%207-06.pdf

The Zio-Crusaders’1 War on Gaza and Lebanon
Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri [May Allah protect him]
Jamada al-Akher 1427 Islamic Calendar
7-2006
As-Sahab Media Production

(snip)

"The events which are occurring shows the seriousness of the two jihadi fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, so Muslims must support jihad until the American forces get out of there totally paralyzed, dragging itself back to its country, and it pays the price for attacking Muslims and for supporting of Israel.

By Iraq being near Palestine it is an advantage; therefore the Muslims should support its Mujahideen until an Islamic Emirate of jihad is established there. Subsequently it would transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine with the Aid of Allah, then the Mujahideen in and out of Palestine would unite and the greatest conquest would be accomplished.

The martyr Imam - as we consider him - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has said “In Iraq we are very close to al-Aqsa Mosque of the Messenger of Allah, so we fight in Iraq and our eyes are on Jerusalem which can only be restored by the guiding Qur’an and sword of victory.”

Perhaps the events of the Zio-Crusaders’ attack on the Muslims may push the traitors in Iraq to swallow their shame and their disloyalty, and stop justifying and supporting the American Crusaders presence in Iraq. . ."

>>>>This is *not* coincidence.

I agree.

"Sixth war"
"9/11 mentioned 6 times"
"Sixth Fleet"
UBL's Hiroshima references = August 6th
6 states on map behind UBL
It is 2006

666 - Satan/ Great Satan = US
Gads....too many sixes.

I wonder if there are more *6* references that we've missed?

"6 states on map behind UBL"

I need to retape that documentary. I said six but listed seven.

In any case, there are still too many sixes.

Joe, thanks for your invaluable posts. Hopefully this weekend I will have time to read them more slowly and see what I can dig up.

"I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none."

Ezekiel 22:30

I'm posting the following to this old Zawahiri thread because it is easier to track back some of the key recent al Qaeda stories on a single thread than to try to sift through thousands of posts on multiple threads (due to the enduring popularity of TM).

The last UBL communication was a "dual release" (only time that has happened except Feb 2003) in late June/early July (right before everything exploded in Gaza and Lebanon). As the following link suggests, the Qaeda/Hezbollah partnership was not and is not hypothetical:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/766329.html

Given that Italy will be leading the expanded UNIFIL in South Lebanon until February and has the largest contingent, and with the recent events connected with the Vatican, it is not inconceivable that an operation might be underway to target these forces (a la 1983) in order to reset in motion the destabilization of the region.

Also worth recalling that the first tape in that last dual release was a 19 minute tape and his voice sounded "breathy and fatigued" (the relevant URL no longer works but I linked to the post with the quote and I'm sure there are other URLs out there with the story. . . the posts above that post relate to the last two nearly simultaneous UBL tapes). In retrospect, it may be evidence either confirming the story that he is ill (or died), or, it is creating the impression of illness as part of a disinformation campaign.

MSNBC was reporting earlier today that their producers in the region (Pakistan and Afghanistan) were trying to reach their contacts inside the Qaeda and Taliban leadership and all their cell phones were off, which the MSNBC producers noted as being "highly unusual".

They speculated that given these two separate stories (French regional newspaper and Time Magazine) are tracing back to Saudi sources (who could be AQ sympathizers), that this could be al Qaeda rather than Western disinformation. That makes the 8/23 dating (UBL 10th anniversary of the formal declaration of war on America) more relevant. That being said, I'm not sure how they could manage to time a leak for the onset of Ramadan given that the story said that the French learned this on 9/4, unless al Qaeda somehow obtained the report within France and leaked it to the paper themselves.

These leaders may have cut off contact today because the story has truth behind it, and they are trying to figure out what is going on. Or they are going silent because the leaked story is a ruse, and the real reason they are disappearing is because something major is underway. But unless there is evidence that the leak was timed for Ramadan, it is more likely to have validity as a genuine story and not be some kind of hall-of-mirrors, mind-bending, psychological jujitsu by one side or the other.

If the French begin to look truly panicked at the source of the original leak (it not being a typical media leak but truly a serious compromise), then the more alarming angle might be true (that was deliberately planted as an excuse for them to go to ground without raising undue alarm on our part - - meaning something is imminent).

Thank you CallMeJoe.

" That being said, I'm not sure how they could manage to time a leak for the onset of Ramadan given that the story said that the French learned this on 9/4, unless al Qaeda somehow obtained the report within France and leaked it to the paper themselves. "

The French learned of this 9-4-06, the sum is 19 again. It doesn't matter if the leak is off by a day or two of Ramadan if this date is the signal and the connection was made.

" It was also stated/planned that "it" would start after the next high level assassination."

The threats against the Pope seem to factor in.

Though I'm not taking any particular theological position on this, it does seem relevant as Cardinal Ratzinger, now the Pope, was the custodian of the famed Fatima vision of a (successful, not just attempted) papal assassination, and is now a prime target for assassination, with both the Vatican in Rome and Italian-led UNIFIL forces in Lebanon targets for major attack.

My interest in Fatima has always been purely political since my focus of study in college was the Soviet Union and the story of the papal assassination attempt had always intrigued me. I remember first becoming fascinated by the USSR when I wrote a paper in the sixth grade on why the Soviet Union was likely behind the attempted assassination because the Polish Pope was a supporter of Solidarity and the USSR felt threatened by Reagan. I seem to remember that the teacher was so amused at my conspiracy theory that she read the paper to the class and at the end was laughing so hard she was nearly in tears. I guess history had the last laugh.

Agca seems to still be quite mentally disturbed. But being that this Pope has an unusual connection to all the previous events as the last surviving custodian of the "third secret" in its unseen entirety, and has now made himself a target, it is worth noting the history that led us to this point.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405994&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

19/09/06 - News section

Papal assassin warns Pope Benedict his 'life is in danger' if he visits Turkey (snipped)

Pope Benedict faces a growing chorus of demands to make an unequivocal apology for remarks seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, despite attempts by Western leaders and churchmen to defuse the crisis. The calls came as it emerged papal hitman Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981, has written to Pope Benedict XVI from jail, warning him not to go to Turkey as planned in November in the light of his remarks. Agca, a Turk gave his ominous warning in a letter to an Italian daily newspaper. . . .

In his two page letter to leading Italian Rome based daily La Repubblica, Agca, who was a member of the Turkish terrorist cell the White Wolves, wrote: "Pope Ratzinger listen to someone who knows these things very well. "Your life is in danger. You absolutely must not come to Turkey. Pope Benedict you must know that between 1980 and 2000 I was in contact with various Western intelligence services and with the Vatican. "In those twenty tears I learnt many things and I came into possession of many classified secrets." The letter closed with Agca imploring Pope Benedict to resign for his own safety he wrote: "For your own welfare you must make a grand gesture of honour and resign. "Then you must return to your native land (Germany) and in your place an Italian cardinal can be elected Pope, possibly (cardinal Dionigi) Tettamanzi or (cardinal Tarcisio) Bertone. "Then the Vatican should become a centre of peace and fraternity. The world has a need of this it does not need hatred and vendetta." Agca was jailed for his attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square in May 1981 and in 2000 he was allowed to return to Turkey to serve the rest of his sentence. Earlier this year he was briefly freed from his life sentence after a judge released him but after a huge outcry he was jailed again within days and is now at Istanbul's Kartal Maltepe jail and not due for release until 2012. . . .

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0501020.htm

FATIMA-AGCA Feb-21-2005 (610 words) xxxi

Papal assailant calls on Vatican to reveal all parts of Fatima secret

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service (snipped)

ROME (CNS) -- The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, jailed Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, has called on the Vatican to reveal what he claims are undisclosed elements of the secret of Fatima. Agca made the request in an "Open Letter to the Vatican" following the death of Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, the last visionary from Fatima, Portugal. Agca's letter was sent to the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, which published it Feb. 20. For years, Agca has maintained that his shooting of the pope was tied to the secrets of Fatima and to the end of the world. At his last Italian trial for the shooting in 1986, Agca interrupted proceedings repeatedly with unintelligible ramblings about Fatima and at one point proclaimed himself to be Jesus Christ. In his latest letter, written from an Istanbul prison where he is serving time for his role in a previous shooting, Agca expressed his sadness at Sister Lucia's death and said, "The secret of Fatima is connected with the end of the world." He called on the Vatican to "reveal to the world the name of the man considered by the Vatican as the 'final Antichrist,' so that humanity can repent and prepare in a better way for the end of the world." . . .

http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2001/mar2001p10_155.html

Cardinal Ratzinger on 'Third Secret' of Fatima

The Holy See's official response to the so-called Third Secret of Fatima was released on 26 June in the form of a 40-page document. It was prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and carries the signatures of the Prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and Secretary, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone SDB. Included in the document is an introduction by Archbishop Bertone, the original texts of the first, second and third parts of the "secret", Pope John Paul II's letter dated 9 April 2000 to Sister Lucia - the sole survivor of the three children who witnessed the Fatima apparitions in 1917 - and a theological commentary by Cardinal Ratzinger (summarised on this page).

In his introduction, Archbishop Bertone points out that Sister Lucia has "personally confirmed" that John Paul II's consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1982 "corresponded to what Our Lady wished," and therefore this matter was closed.

(snipped)

The theological commentary on the Third Secret of Fatima by Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is divided into three parts: "Public Revelation and private revelations - their theological status"; "The anthropological structure of private revelations" and "An attempt to interpret the 'secret' of Fatima." . . .

In the same way as the key word of the first and second part of the "secret" is to "save souls," Cardinal Ratzinger suggests that "the key word of this third part is the threefold cry: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!' The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind: 'Repent and believe the Good News.' To understand the signs of the times means to accept the urgency of penance, of conversion, of faith. This is the correct response to this moment of history, characterised by the grave perils outlined in the images that follow. Allow me to add here a personal recollection: in a conversation with me Sister Lucia said that it appeared ever more clearly to her that the purpose of all the apparitions was to help people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love; everything else was intended to lead to this."

The various "images" of the secret are then considered: "The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgement which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword."

The Church's path can be viewed as a "Via Crucis," as a journey through a time of violence, destruction and persecution. "In the vision we can recognise the last century as a century of martyrs, a century of suffering and persecution for the Church, a century of World Wars and the many local wars which filled the last fifty years and have inflicted unprecedented forms of cruelty. In the 'mirror' of this vision we see passing before us the witnesses of the faith decade by decade."

The Cardinal continues: "In the Via Crucis of an entire century, the figure of the Pope has a special role. In his arduous ascent of the mountain we can undoubtedly see a convergence of different Popes. Beginning from Pius X up to the present Pope, they all shared the sufferings of the century and strove to go forward through all the anguish along the path which leads to the Cross. In the vision, the Pope too is killed along with the martyrs.

When, after the attempted assassination on 13 May 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the 'secret' brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following words: '... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death' (13 May 1994). That here 'a mother's hand' had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies."

Cardinal Ratzinger concludes that the events to which the third part of the 'secret' of Fatima refers now seem part of the past. "Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity." . . .

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/24/story_2476_1.html

Pope Orders 'Third Secret' of Fatima Revealed

John Paul II acted at the site of the revelation said to have forecast a 1981 assassination attempt on his life

Beliefnet News Services

FATIMA, Portugal, May 13--Pope John Paul II ended a visit to Portugal late Saturday after beatifying two peasant children in the central town of Fatima and ordering that a long-standing mystery of the Roman Catholic Church--"The Third Secret" of Fatima--be revealed. The Third Secret, which some thought foretold the exact date of doomsday or lurid church scandals, actually warned of the assassination attempt against the Pope, the Vatican said. The so-called secrets of Fatima came from three shepherd children who saw visions of the Virgin Mary in a Portuguese field in 1917. The Pope visited Fatima Saturday to beatify two of the children and finally released the long-awaited third secret.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano told a crowd of believers that the third revelation describes "a bishop clothed in white" who "falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of gunfire." The Catholic Church interprets the vision as a description of the pope's near-fatal shooting in 1981. A Turkish gunman shot Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the first reported vision at Fatima. John Paul II has credited the Virgin Mary with saving his life, and one of the gunman's bullets was placed in the crown of the Madonna statue in Fatima. An Australian man even hijacked a plane in 1981 to try to force the Vatican to reveal the Third Secret. Sister Lucia, a 93-year-old nun who is the last survivor of the three children, first told church officials about the first two secrets in 1943. The third was written down and sent in a sealed envelope to the Vatican.

Church officials said they were still holding back part of the third secret, but cautioned it contained no earth-shattering announcements. "The events to which the third part of the Secret of Fatima refers now seem part of the past," said Sodano, who added the complete text of the secret will be released after the Vatican writes a thorough explanation of the prophesy.

On Saturday morning, more than 800,000 pilgrims attended a ceremony during which the pope beatified Francisco Marto and his sister Jacinta, who, with surviving visionary Sister Lucia Dos Santos, claimed to have been passed three secrets in a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in 1917. At the ceremony, Sodano said the pope had asked the church hierarchy to make public the third secret of Fatima, which, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro later explained, foresaw a 1981 assassination attempt on the pontiff. The first two Fatima secrets--referring to God's punishment for mankind's sins, the need for repentance, and a prophesy of Russia's attempt to wipe out religion under communism--had long been known, and expectations the third would be revealed had been running high. Sodano said the text of the secret constituted a prophetic vision comparable to that of the Holy Scriptures. "The Fatima vision concerns above all the struggle of atheist systems against the Church and against Christians. It describes the immense suffering of witnesses of faith in the last century of the second millennium," Sodano said in a statement released here.

"According to the interpretation of the young shepherds, the bishop dressed in white who prays for all the faithful is the pope. He, too, walking painfully towards the cross among the bodies of martyrs (bishops, priests, believers and non-believers), falls to the ground as if dead, hit by gunshots," Sodano said. A Turkish gunman, Ali Agca, carried out an assassination attempt on the pope in Rome's Saint Peter's Square 19 years ago to the day. "It is clear today that the bishop dressed in white was Pope John Paul II," Vatican spokesman Navarro said. The pope himself referred to the attack during the ceremony, saying: "I want once more to celebrate the bounty of the Lord towards me, when, struck a grievous blow on May 13, 1981, I was saved from death." He has long credited the Virgin Mary with his survival.

The third Fatima secret had previously been known only to the surviving visionary, 93-year old Sister Lucia Dos Santos, the pope, and German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

The pope met Sister Lucia, a cloistered nun, before the ceremony. The ceremony for the beatification of Francisco Marto and his sister Jacinta took place on the day that marked the anniversary of their first vision. Both died of flu within three years of their reported visions. Throughout his homily, the pope stressed the humility of the two shepherds, who came from a poor family and were virtually illiterate. They are the first children to be beatified, the penultimate step before sainthood.

PING

I want to see this animated turd have to eat his beard.

Istanbul = Constantinople

http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=1468615&section=news&src=rss/uk/worldNews

Istanbul statue honours "great Pontiff" Benedict

Sun Sep 24, 2006 09:25 AM ET
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Just off a busy main street in central Istanbul stands a towering statue of Pope Benedict, with a plaque hailing him as "the benefactor of all people, regardless of nationality or religion".

Pope Benedict, now under fire in the Muslim world for recent remarks about Islam, will visit the larger-than-life bronze statue during his delicate trip to Turkey in late November.

Is this a gesture of reconciliation from a government with Islamist roots that has just called the German-born pontiff's words "ugly and unfortunate"? Or a serious mistake in timing?

The answer is neither. The statue was erected in 1921 to Pope Benedict XV, the last head of the Roman Catholic Church to use that name until German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in April 2005 and became Benedict XVI.

Ratzinger said that the last Benedict's repeated efforts to end the First World War were one reason he took the name.

Turkey honoured the Italian-born Benedict for opening up Catholic health facilities to all victims of the war, regardless of which side they fought on. The then Ottoman Empire was allied with another empire that lost that war, Germany.

"He didn't succeed in ending the war, so he did what he could to ease the suffering of its victims," said Monsignor Georges Marovitch, spokesman for the bishops serving the tiny minority of Roman and Eastern Catholics in this Muslim country.

Heeding his call, the Spanish embassy set up a small hospital and nuns installed recovery rooms in their convents for wounded Ottoman soldiers and ailing Austrian and Italian prisoners of war forced to work in Anatolian mines and on railways.

When Church officials began collecting for the statue, Sultan Mehmet VI joined Muslims, Jews, Armenians and other groups contributing to the fund, said Rinaldo Marmara, historian for the Vatican representation in Istanbul.

WORRIED BENEDICT SAYS "STOP!"

The statue stands on a large stone pedestal in the small forecourt of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, built in 1846.

In keeping with their minority status here, the Catholics had to hide the cathedral behind an office building to avoid offending the city's Muslim majority. They erected the statue in the forecourt for the same reason.

The Italian-made memorial shows a worried looking Benedict in his papal robes and triple tiara, with his right hand raised as if to say "stop!" to the trench fighting he abhorred.

It would be hard to imagine any such gesture of gratitude to today's Benedict, who spoke out against Turkish membership in the European Union before he was elected Pope.

This month, he gave a speech interpreted as an attack on Islam, prompting Muslim leaders to call for the visit to be called off or for Benedict to issue a full apology.

But it's not all hard feelings here.

The city of Istanbul has paid for cleaning and renovating the statue in preparation for the Pope's visit.

"We're the City Hall for all the people, not just for one group," said Nadya Tasel, the city official in charge of relations with minority communities, said as she visited the site to review the work.

Asked how much the renovation cost, she smiled and said: "This is a gift from the city. It's not right to reveal the price of a gift."

>>>>Or they are going silent because the leaked story is a ruse, and the real reason they are disappearing is because something major is underway.

That'd be my guess.

I'll search for the articles, but this isn't the first time UBL has been reported dead just in time for Ramadan. IIRC, there were reports that he was killed in Tora Bora - also for Ramadan.

Bookmarking to read in-depth tomorrow.

One thing though - wasn't Agca a member of the "Grey Wolves"? I hadn't heard of White Wolves.

Someone was pointing out yesterday on one of the news channels that he used the 6 months after Tora Bora when many thought him dead to get resituated.

I think you are right about the Grey Wolves.