Vatican next says Al Qaeda fax. (or does it?)

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Thursday August 25, 2005 14:26 by getting very religious - sure its God or Patria innit.

Spanish police are investigating two faxes written in arabic signed on behalf of Al Qaeda which threaten an imminent attack on the Vatican.

There has been one arrest.

The lengthy faxes warned of that the Vatican would be attacked for playing its part in the war on Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting Hitler. The faxes cited newspaper reports from the 1940s.

Spanish national police arrested early this morning a man, a citizen of Spain, born in Sevilla 1957 identified only as J.R.M. in relation to two faxes, one was sent to the Spanish state TV station TVE the other to the Barcelona offices of the rightwign daily newspaper ABC.

The faxes were headed "operation vatican".

The man is being held under legislation prohibiting "threats on behalf of a terrorist group", a particularly active law in the spanish state.

Neither the interior ministry of Italy or the Vatican are commenting on the case, on which one spanish police spokesperson in Barcelona had this to say this morning :-

""Siempre se toma en serio (una amenaza)", . "Aunque a veces la persona resulta ser un loco". = "Its always taken seriously (a threat) even though at times the person turns out to be a nutter".

As part of the routine timed release of US secret information, the files relating to Franco's state through the 1940s upto the tenure of Nixon have recently become a regular feature in the spanish media and might have excited imaginations.

In the last month 17 spanish peace-keeping troops serving with the ISAF mission in Afghanistan died when their helicopter crashed,
which has brought some attention to the continuing spanish military deployment in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Haiti.

"operation vatican" reminded both TVE and ABC that an alliance of capitalist states had invaded Iraq for Oil, and that they would reap the harvest.

(the usual sort of language).

Señor J.R.M. worked in a "locotorio" one of the hundreds of call shops and internet cafés in the centre of Barcelona and has admitted to writing several faxes which were sent from the same shop to various european numbers in the last week, not just the final two that got him lagged.

Police are now determining whether the assistance given in writing these 3 pages may constitute a crime.

The file has passed these last 24 hours from the communications office of the national police to the central comission on communications to the spanish equivalent of the dpp.

How the story broke in english .-
(note the level of threat)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,12272,1555891,00.html
How the story is being reported now :-
(note the slight derision)
http://www.eitb24.com/noticia_en.php?id=84578

This is a good example of how stories bounce around the world, already people in South America have read and seen on their telly that the Vatican is going to be attacked, and the follow-up just doesn't get that much attention.