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Scott
Lofman - Editor
Last Updated March 2005
About
Scott
NOT THE FIRST TIME
A recent news report claimed that Abu Musab al Zarqawi's al Qaeda in
Iraq organization was targeting not only the White House but also the
Vatican for attack. This would not be the first time that radical
Islamic terrorists had targeted the Pope. In fact, citing Richard
Miniter's excellent book, LOSING BIN LADEN, they hatched a plan to kill
Pope John Paul II ten years ago while the Pontiff was visiting the
Philippines.
On the night of January 6, 1995, exactly one week before the Papal
visit, thick black smoke billowed out from a kitchen window on the sixth
floor of an apartment building in downtown Manila. When authorities
opened the door to the room, which had been rented by two Middle-Eastern
men a month earlier, they discovered a bomb-making factory. They found
plastic breakers, coils of colored electrical wire, boxes from German
and Pakistani chemical companies, four brand new hot plates and a
foul-smelling liquid soaked into sponge-like bricks of cotton.
They also found other things which seemed to be out of place for two
followers of Allah: a photograph of Pope John Paul II, a Bible, a
crucifix, and a message on the telephone answering machine from a local
tailor saying that the priest's cassock was ready for a final fitting.
While the two occupants of the apartment had fled the building
immediately after their apparent bomb-making effort had gone awry,
Philippine police apprehended one of the suspects a short time later
when he tried to sneak back into the building to retrieve the stash of
cash and forged documents that had been hidden in the apartment for a
quick escape.
After several days of interrogation, Abdul Hakim Murad revealed that his
cohort who got away was none other than the man who was wanted by the
FBI for his participation in the first World Trade Center bombing
(1993), Osama bin Laden associate and explosives expert, Ramzi Yousef.
Murad also admitted that he planned to kill the Pope in a suicidal
attack by posing as a priest and detonating a bomb hidden under his
cassock as he went to shake the Pontiff's hand during a passing
motorcade.
Considering al-Qaeda failed to bring down the World Trade Center on
their first try in 1993, it's not surprising that they will try to once
again kill the successor to St. Peter. |
