Spanish police investigating supposed Al Qaeda threats against Vatican

Madrid, Spain, Aug 24, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Spanish police are investigating the authenticity and credibility of a message sent by fax to the Madrid daily ABC, allegedly in the name of Al Qaeda, which threatens terrorist to lead  attacks against the Vatican and justifies the attacks in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

Written in Arabic, the message criticizes the Vatican for its alleged role in the Jewish holocaust of the Nazis and calls the attacks carried out recently in Europe acts “of personal defense against the terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The message also claims the Vatican has supported the war in Iraq at the behest of capitalist countries that are interested in the country’s oil supply.  Those responsible for the military campaign “will pay for what they have done,” the message says.

According to ABC, the message mixes together information about the Nazi party and its support from the Vatican.  Investigators said that this portion of the message seems to “have been copied from some article or book, and in fact one paragraph includes quotes from an article published in The New York Times in December of 1941.”

The message was sent first to ABC’s offices in Barcelona and minutes later to its offices in Madrid.  The Spanish television network TVE received the same message two days earlier.  ABC reported that the message appears to have come from "an Al Qaeda sympathizer rather than a cell member,"