Yearly Archives: 2017

Our ‘Favourite Prey’ – Egypt’s Coptic Christians – Islamic State

isil, isis, Islamic Extremists, Islamic State, , , ,

Our

Image result for coptic christians egypt

‘Favourite  Prey’

 

Spare a thought for the Coptic Christian’s of Egypt & all  Christian minority groups throughout the world in these troubled times. Those  who live in lands controlled by the Mad Men of Islamic State & their shameful, demonic  worldwide Terrorist Franchise are being killed and slaughtered  every-single-day. Sadly the world is so busy  and overwhelmed by the never ending Terror on our own streets that we hardly seem to notice.

These mad extremists hate  us because in their eyes we are “infidels” and they are consumed by their deluded , twisted , evil ideology , built on hate , paranoia and policed by the dark arts of  the wicked  Sharia Law.

 

INFIDEL

ˈɪnfɪd(ə)l/
archaic
noun
plural noun: infidels
  1. a person who has no religion or whose religion is not that of the majority.
    “a crusade against infidels and heretics”

 

The events in Manchester this week has shocked and sicken all decent people the world over and the sad fact is we are now living in a  new age off Terrorism , where there are no longer ANY Boundaries , both ethically  and demographically  and the slaughtered of the most vulnerable  and young among us is no longer sacred.

Islamic Extremists seem to permeate & engulf our daily lives and sadly they aren’t going to go away any time soon.

Like many I have shed tears for the victims of this unspeakably evil act and watching their families on the TV and their emotional agony breaks my heart every single time.

Saffie Rose Roussos

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The beautiful angelic little Saffie Rose Roussos

saffie

The family and I have been down every day to pay our respects and silent contemplation

The victims in Egypt are also victims of this modern curse and my thoughts and prayers are with their families.

We are  all “Prey” to these Islamic Monsters and someway , somehow we have to destroy this hate filled twisted ideology and eradicate it and all its followers from the history of the mankind.

 

Coptic Christian attack:

ISIS claims its ‘soldiers’ opened fire on bus killing 29 in Egypt

An Islamic State affiliate released a video Monday vowing that Egyptian Christians are their “favourite prey,” showing images of a suicide bomber who killed nearly 30 people inside a packed Cairo church in December.

 

Image result for Coptic Christian attack

 

“God gave orders to kill every infidel,”

one of the militants carrying an AK-47 assault rifle says in the 20-minute video.

BOMBING OF COPTIC CHURCH IN EGYPT UNDERSCORES LONG HISTORY OF OPPRESSION OF CHRISTIANS

 

The video shows footage of Egypt’s Coptic Christian Pope, Christian businessmen, judges and priests who either speak of the need to protect the minority or use derogatory terms to refer to Egypt’s Muslim majority. The narrator says Christians were no longer “dhimmis,” a reference to non-Muslims in Islam who enjoy a degree of state protection. Instead, the group describes the Christians as “infidels” who are empowering the West against Muslim nations.

Image result for Abu Abdullah al-Masri, a masked militant

Abu Abdullah al-Masri

The video shows footage of Abu Abdullah al-Masri, a masked militant who blew himself up at the central Cairo church in December, killing 28 people, most of which were women and children. The attack, says a narrator, was “only the beginning.

AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ OPERATING CLOSER TO FRONT LINES

“Oh worshippers of the cross … the soldiers of the state are watching you,” another masked militant identified as Abu Zubair al-Masri says.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the church bombing, which was its deadliest attack in Egypt outside the Sinai Peninsula, according to Reuters. Prior to the attack, Abu Abdullah al-Masri had been detained for two months in 2014 before joining Wilayat Sinai, the name of the ISIS branch in Sinai, the Egyptian government said.

Wilayat Sinai has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings and attacks, mainly targeting security forces and military across the country but primarily in Sinai Peninsula, where the army has been leading an anti-terrorism operation for years.

See FoxNews for full story

 

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Copts in Egypt

                                                                   Copts in Egypt
Coptic flag.svg  • Egypt
Total population
9 to 15 million
Languages
  • Arabic
  • Coptic
  • (Liturgical only; nearly extinct but it is in a process to be revived among Copts)
Religion
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria

Copts in Egypt refers to Coptic people born in or residing in Egypt.

Coptic people are the largest ethno-religious minority in Egypt. The largest Coptic Christian group in Egypt is the Coptic Orthodox Church with a population of at least 7,200,000  and the second is the Coptic Catholic Church with a population of 161,000

Other estimates of the ethnic Coptic population within Egypt range between 9 and 15 million.

History

President Nasser welcomes a delegation of Coptic bishops (1965)

Coptic flag.

Under Muslim rule, the ethnic Copts were cut off from the mainstream of Christianity, and were compelled to adhere to the Pact of Umar covenant, thus assigned to Dhimmi status. Their position improved dramatically under the rule of Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century. He abolished the Jizya (a tax on non-Muslims) and allowed ethnic Copts to enroll in the army. Pope Cyril IV, 1854–61, reformed the church and encouraged broader Coptic participation in Egyptian affairs. Khedive Isma’il Pasha, in power 1863–79, further promoted the Copts.

He appointed them judges to Egyptian courts and awarded them political rights and representation in government. They flourished in business affairs.

Some ethnic Copts participated in the Egyptian national movement for independence and occupied many influential positions. Two significant cultural achievements include the founding of the Coptic Museum in 1910 and the Higher Institute of Coptic Studies in 1954. Some prominent Coptic thinkers from this period are Salama Moussa, Louis Awad and Secretary General of the Wafd Party Makram Ebeid.

In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser led some army officers in a coup d’état against King Farouk, which overthrew the Kingdom of Egypt and established a republic. Nasser‘s mainstream policy was pan-Arab nationalism and socialism. The ethnic Copts were severely affected by Nasser’s nationalization policies, though they represented about 10–20% of the population.

In addition, Nasser’s pan-Arab policies undermined the Copts’ strong attachment to and sense of identity about their Egyptian pre-Arab, and certainly non-Arab identity which resulted in permits to construct churches to be delayed along with Christian religious courts to be closed.

Pharaonism

Many Coptic intellectuals hold to “Pharaonism,” which states that Coptic culture is largely derived from pre-Christian, Pharaonic culture, and is not indebted to Greece. It gives the Copts a claim to a deep heritage in Egyptian history and culture. Pharaonism was widely held by Coptic and Muslim scholars in the early 20th century, and it helped bridge the divide between those groups. However, some Western scholars today argue that Pharaonism was a late development shaped primarily by Orientalism, and doubt its validity.

Persecution and discrimination in Egypt

Main articles: Persecution of Copts and Religion in Egypt

Religious freedom in Egypt is hampered to varying degrees by discriminatory and restrictive government policies. Coptic Christians, being the largest religious minority in Egypt, are also negatively affected. Copts have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup d’état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches.

Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles and restrictions in building new churches. These restrictions do not apply for building mosques.

The Coptic community has been targeted by hate crimes resulting in Copts being victims of murder by Islamic extremists. The most significant was the 2000–01 El Kosheh attacks, in which Muslims and Christians were involved in bloody inter-religious clashes following a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian.

“Twenty Christians and one Muslim were killed after violence broke out in the town of el-Kosheh, 440 kilometres (270 mi) south of Cairo”.

International Christian Concern reported that in February 2001, Muslims burned a new Egyptian church and the homes of 35 Christians, and that in April 2001 a 14-year-old Egyptian Christian girl was kidnapped because her parents were believed to be harboring a person who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

In 2006, one person attacked three churches in Alexandria, killing one person and injuring 5–16. The attacker was not linked to any organisation and described as “psychologically disturbed” by the Ministry of Interior.

In May 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported increasing waves of mob attacks by Muslims against ethnic Copts.  Despite frantic calls for help, the police typically arrived after the violence was over. The police also coerced the Copts to accept “reconciliation” with their attackers to avoid prosecuting them, with no Muslims convicted for any of the attacks.

In Marsa Matrouh, a Bedouin mob of 3,000 Muslims tried to attack the city’s Coptic population, with 400 Copts having to barricade themselves in their church while the mob destroyed 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars.

Members of U.S. Congress have expressed concern about “human trafficking” of Coptic women and girls who are victims of abductions, forced conversion to Islam, sexual exploitation and forced marriage to Muslim men.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali is a Copt who served as Egypt‘s foreign minister under President Anwar Sadat. Today, only two Copts are on Egypt‘s governmental cabinet: Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali and Environment Minister Magued George. There is also currently one Coptic governor out of 25, that of the upper Egyptian governorate of Qena, and the first Coptic governor in a few decades. In addition, Naguib Sawiris, an extremely successful businessman and one of the world’s 100 wealthiest people, is a Copt. In 2002, under the Mubarak government, Coptic Christmas (January 7) was recognized as an official holiday.

However, many Copts continue to complain of being minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and of being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion. Most Copts do not support independence or separation movement from other Egyptians.

While freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Egyptian constitution, according to Human Rights Watch,

 

“Egyptians are able to convert to Islam generally without difficulty, but Muslims who convert to Christianity face difficulties in getting new identity papers and some have been arrested for allegedly forging such documents.”

The Coptic community, however, takes pains to prevent conversions from Christianity to Islam due to the ease with which Christians can often become Muslim. Public officials, being conservative themselves, intensify the complexity of the legal procedures required to recognize the religion change as required by law. Security agencies will sometimes claim that such conversions from Islam to Christianity (or occasionally vice versa) may stir social unrest, and thereby justify themselves in wrongfully detaining the subjects, insisting that they are simply taking steps to prevent likely social troubles from happening.

In 2007, a Cairo administrative court denied 45 citizens the right to obtain identity papers documenting their reversion to Christianity after converting to Islam.  However, in February 2008 the Supreme Administrative Court overturned the decision, allowing 12 citizens who had reverted to Christianity to re-list their religion on identity cards, but they will specify that they had adopted Islam for a brief period of time.

The Egyptian Census of 1897 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 14.7% (13.2% Christians, 1.4% Jews). The Egyptian Census of 1986 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 6.1% (5.7% Christians, 0% Jews). The decline in the Jewish representation is interpreted through the creation of the state of Israel, and the subsequent emigration of the Egyptian Jews. There is no explanation for a 55% decline in the percentage of Christians in Egypt. It has been suggested that Egyptian censuses held after 1952 have been politicized to under-represent the Christian population.

In August 2013, following the 3 July 2013 Coup and clashes between the military and Morsi supporters, there were widespread attacks on Coptic churches and institutions in Egypt by Sunni Muslims. According to at least one Egyptian scholar (Samuel Tadros), the attacks are the worst violence against the Coptic Church since the 14th century.

USA Today reported that “forty churches have been looted and torched, while 23 others have been attacked and heavily damaged”. The Facebook page of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party was “rife with false accusations meant to foment hatred against Copts”, according to journalist Kirsten Powers. The Party’s page claimed that the Coptic Church had declared “war against Islam and Muslims” and that

“The Pope of the Church is involved in the removal of the first elected Islamist president. The Pope of the Church alleges Islamic Sharia is backwards, stubborn, and reactionary.”

On August 15, nine Egyptian human rights groups under the umbrella group “Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights”, released a statement saying,

In December … Brotherhood leaders began fomenting anti-Christian sectarian incitement. The anti-Coptic incitement and threats continued unabated up to the demonstrations of June 30 and, with the removal of President Morsi … morphed into sectarian violence, which was sanctioned by … the continued anti-Coptic rhetoric heard from the group’s leaders on the stage … throughout the sit-in.

Events related to Copts

An Egyptian court on February 25, 2016 convicted four Coptic Christian teenagers for contempt of Islam, after they appeared in a video mocking Muslim prayers.

Nearly all Egyptian Christians today are ethnic Copts, adherents of either the Coptic Orthodox Church or other Coptic churches.

Notable Copts in Egypt

Main article: List of Copts

 

 

Libyan Connections – Islamic State in Libya

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Libyan Connections –  Islamic State in Libya

Salman Abedi

Salman Abedi has been named by police as the Manchester bomber

Manchester attack:

The Libya-jihad connection

As each hour passes we learn more about Salman Abedi. What we don’t know yet is his exact journey from Manchester-born boy to suicide bomber.

The BBC has been told by a Muslim community worker that members of the public called the police anti-terrorism hotline about Abedi’s extreme and violent views several years ago.

We don’t know how the police responded to these reported hotline calls – but we have also learnt that earlier this year, Abedi’s behaviour again raised concerns.

According to our sources, he told local people about the value of dying for a cause.

He also made hardline statements about suicide bombings and the conflict in Libya.

The Libyan connection

Libya Dawn militia

Abedi’s parents fled Libya as opponents of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime.

Libya, alongside its North African neighbours, has been a centre for the rise of modern Islamist political movements.

These movements were originally dedicated to overthrowing dictatorial regimes and, to varying extents, promoting the idea of Islamic government.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) wanted to overthrow Gaddafi and became the dominant revolutionary force in the country in the 1990s, until the dictator began turning the screw.

Many of those with Islamist connections tried to flee – and many of them were granted refuge in the UK.

Salman Abedi’s father, Ramadan, was part of the broad network of opponents who supported those Islamist anti-Gaddafi aims. He arrived in the UK in the early 1990s.

We have been told by senior LIFG sources that he was not a member of the organisation. But he was known to be a dissident with some of the same political goals.

See BBC News for full Story:

 

Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant in Libya

islamic state in libya

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a militant Islamist group active in Libya under three branches: Fezzan Province (Arabic: ولاية الفزان‎‎, Wilayah al-Fizan) in the desert south, Cyrenaica Province (Arabic: ولاية البرقة‎‎, Wilayah al-Barqah) in the east, and Tripolitania Province (Arabic: ولاية الطرابلس‎‎, Wilayah al-Tarabulus) in the west.

The branches were formed on 13 November 2014, following pledges of allegiance to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by militants in Libya

Active 13 November 2014  – Present
Ideology Salafist Islamism
Salafist Jihadism
Leaders Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Leader of ISIL)
Abu Nabil al Anbari (Nom de guerre Abul Mughirah al Qahtani) †
Abdel Qader al-Najdi[7][8]
Headquarters
  • Derna
    (November 2014 – June 2015)
  • Sirte
    (July 2015 – 6 December 2016)
  • Benghazi
    (December 2016 – present)
Area of operations Libya
Strength 5,000-6,500  or 10,000
Part of  Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Opponents Libya Libyan Parliament

Libya New General National Congress

Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna

Egypt Egypt

Background

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Following the 2011 Libyan Civil War, which resulted in the ousting of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his government, many rebel fighters went to Syria to fight alongside militant groups who were fighting Bashar al-Assad and his loyalists in the Syrian Civil War.

In 2012, one group of Libyans fighting in Syria declared the establishment of the Battar Brigade. The Battar Brigade would later pledge loyalty to ISIL, and fight for it in both Syria and Iraq.

In the spring of 2014, up to 300 Battar Brigade veterans returned to Libya. In Derna, they formed a new faction called the Islamic Youth Shura Council, which began recruiting militants from other local groups. Among the joinees were many members of the Derna branch of Ansar al-Sharia.

Image result for Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade

During the next few months, they declared war on anyone in Derna who opposed them, killing judges, civic leaders and other opponents, including local militants who rejected their authority such as the al-Qaeda-allied Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade.

In September 2014, an ISIL delegation that had been dispatched by the group’s leadership arrived in Libya. The representatives included Abu Nabil al Anbari, a senior aide to al-Baghdadi and a veteran of the Iraq conflict,  the Saudi Abu Habib al-Jazrawi, and the Yemeni  or Saudi  Abu al-Baraa el-Azdi, a militant and preacher from Syria.

On 5 October 2014, the Islamic Youth Shura Council-aligned militant factions came together and pledged allegiance to ISIL. After the pledging ceremony, more than 60 pickup trucks filled with fighters cruised through the city in a victory parade.

A second more formal gathering involving a larger array of factions took place on 30 October 2014, where the militants gathered to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the city square.

On 13 November 2014, al-Baghdadi released an audio-recording in which he accepted pledges of allegiance from supporters in five countries, including Libya, and announced the expansion of his group to those territories.

He went on to announce the creation of three “provinces” (wilayah) in Libya: Wilayah al-Fizan (Fezzan in the desert south), Wilayah al-Barqah (Cyrenaica in the east), and Wilayah al-Tarabulus (Tripolitania in the west). The three wilayahs in Libya represent statelets, meaning they are a governates that hold territory and operate like a state.

Attacks and Expansion across Libya

Current military situation (as of 7 December 2016)

  Under the control of the Tobruk-led Government and Zintan Brigades
  Under the control of the New General National Congress and Libya Shield Force
  Controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  Controlled by the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG)
  Controlled by Tuareg forces
  Controlled by local forces

When founded, ISIL claimed a presence in al Bayda, Benghazi, Sirte, al-Khums, and the Libyan capital Tripoli.  The Cyrenaica branch of ISIL had around 800 fighters and half a dozen camps in Derna’s outskirts. It also had larger facilities in the Jebel Akhdar area, where North African fighters were trained.

In December 2014, ISIL recruiters in Turkey told their Libyan associates to stop sending fighters to Syria and to focus on domestic attacks, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the following weeks, ISIL carried out attacks against oil installations and international hotels, performed mass executions and attempted to take over further Libyan territory.

The group made tactical alliances with al Qaeda-linked groups that did not formally pledge allegiance to it, such as the Benghazi branch of Ansar al-Sharia, members of Tunisia’s Ansar al-Sharia, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb‘s Tarek Ibn Ziyad Brigade.

On 30 March 2015, Ansar al-Sharia‘s general Sharia jurist Abu Abdullah Al-Libi pledged allegiance to ISIL, a number of the group’s members defected with him.

The city of Sirte had been loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and suffered massive damage at the conclusion of the 2011 Civil War,  later becoming home to militant Islamist groups like Ansar al-Sharia. ISIL formally announced their presence in Sirte in early 2015, driving a parade of vehicles through the city and declaring it part of their caliphate. Ansar al-Sharia split over how to respond, with most of their members joining ISIL.

The group reportedly recruited many locals, former Gaddafi supporters alienated from the post-war political order in Libya, after they “repented” and pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi. They were quickly able to take over much of the city.

ISIL implemented their harsh interpretation of Sharia gradually, first focusing on building loyalty and allegiance from the tribal society of Sirte. In August 2015 Islamic codes of dress and behaviour began to be enforced more strongly and punishments like crucifixions and lashings began to be carried out.

There was an uprising against ISIL in Sirte in the same month, with members of the Ferjani tribe, Salafists and former members of the security forces attacking ISIL forces. ISIL brought in reinforcements from outside of Sirte and the uprising was swiftly defeated, with media reports claiming dozens or hundreds of Sirte residents were killed after the fighting.

ISIL began to solidify its rule in Sirte, increasing its state building efforts and using it as a base to expand its territory. ISIL fighters from Sirte took over the neighbouring towns of Nofaliya, and Harawa during this period.

Ghardabiya Airfield - Damaged Aircraft Shelters - Operation Odyssey Dawn.jpg

They also seized control of Ghardabiya Air Base and important infrastructure like power plants and part of the Great Man-Made River water irrigation project. By early 2016, there were an estimated 1,500, mostly foreign, fighters in the city, and Vice Admiral Clive Johnstone, commander of NATO’s Allied Maritime Command, warned that ISIL militants aspired to build a maritime arm that could carry out attacks in the Mediterranean Sea against tourist and transfer ships.

The group suffered reverses in other parts of Libya during this period, including in Derna, Benghazi, and Sabratha. In June 2015, clashes erupted in Derna between ISIL and the rival Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna supported by the Libyan Air Force, which caused heavy casualties on both sides and led to ISIL forces being driven out of their strongholds in the city the following month.

In November 2015, a US air strike killed ISIL’s leader in Libya, Abu Nabil al Anbari. He was succeeded by Abdel Qader al-Najdi.

In early 2016, the Khalifa Haftar-led Libyan National Army, reportedly with the assistance of French Special Forces, captured parts of Benghazi that had been held by ISIL for months. In February 2016, a U.S. air strike targeted an ISIL training camp near Sabratha, killing more than 40 people including the Tunisian ISIL member Noureddine Chouchane, linked to the 2015 Sousse attacks, as well as two Serbians who had been kidnapped by ISIL in 2015.

In December 2016, following a 7-month long battle, ISIL was cleared from Sirte by Libyan Forces, with assistance from air strikes by the United States. The group withdrew to desert areas south of Sirte, and began mostly low level attacks on Libyan forces and local infrastructure. In January 2017, U.S. airstrikes on an ISIL base 25 miles southwest of Sirte reportedly killed over 80 militants.

Foreign fighters

Libyan intelligence chiefs claimed in early February 2016, that the Islamic State is recruiting fighters from Africa’s poorest nations, including Chad, Mali and Sudan. ISIL offers generous salaries compared to the average wages in the region. Many of the fighters reach Libya using existing people-smuggling routes used by African migrants heading to Europe.

Propaganda

Image result for Media Office for Cyrenaica Province

The “Media Office for Cyrenaica Province” has published photos and other material showing buildings with ISIL insignia, suicide bombers, parades, and pledges of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A reporter for The New York Times who visited the outskirts of Sirte found that ISIL had taken over the local radio station, and all four stations on the dial were being used to transmit Islamic sermons.

ISIL in Libya had threatened to facilitate the arrival of thousands of migrants to destabilize Europe if they are attacked.

Laws

Billboards instructing women how to dress according to ISIL’s interpretation of Sharia were erected in Sirte in July 2015. The billboard gave a list of restrictions on dress for women.
“Instructions on wearing the hijab according to Sharia

It must be thick and not revealing

It must be loose (not tight)

It must cover all the body

It must not be attractive

It must not resemble the clothes of unbelievers or men

It must not be decorative and eye-catching

It must not be perfumed.”

Human rights abuses and war crimes allegations

islamic state in libya

By late 2014, Derna was fully under ISIL control, with the Black Standard flying over government buildings, police cars carrying ISIL insignia, and the local football stadium being used for public executions. A Human Rights Watch report accused ISIL linked groups in control of Derna of war crimes and human rights abuses that include terrorizing residents in the absence of state authorities and the rule of law.

Human Rights Watch documented 3 apparent summary executions and at least 10 public floggings by the Islamic Youth Shura Council, which joined ISIL in November 2014. They also documented beheadings of three Derna residents and 250 seemingly politically motivated assassinations of judges, public officials, members of the security forces, journalists, and others with no public investigations. Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Middle East, and North Africa director said,

“Commanders should understand that they may face domestic or international prosecution for the grave rights abuses their forces are committing.”

Under ISIL’s watch, women increasingly wore face veils and young men caught drinking alcohol were flogged. Education changes included male/female segregation of students, and the removal of history and geography from the curriculum. New Islamic religious police flyers ordered clothing stores to cover their mannequins and not to display “scandalous women’s clothes that cause sedition.” The law school was closed.

Claimed and alleged attacks

  • In November 2014, ISIL’s Cyrenaica wing claimed it had previously dispatched nine suicide bombers from Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia to carry out attacks against Libyan security forces in and around Benghazi. CNN reported that several of these attacks seemed to correspond to previously unclaimed suicide bombings, including a twin-attack on a Libyan special forces camp in Benghazi on 23 July 2014 and a 2 October 2014 attack on a military checkpoint near Benina airport.
  • Cyrenaica Province is the prime suspect in a 12 November 2014 suicide bombing in Tobruk that killed one and wounded 14, and a bombing outside Labraq air force base in Al-Bayda that killed four, according to a CNN report.
  • On November 13, bombs exploded near the embassies of Egypt and the UAE in Tripoli, however no casualties were reported. An ISIL-linked Twitter account suggested their Tripoli wing was responsible for the attacks, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
  • In December 2014, the beheaded bodies of Mohammed Battu and Sirak Qath, human rights activists abducted in Derna on 6 November 2014, were found.
  • In January 2015, the group’s Cyrenaica branch published photos claiming to show the execution of two Tunisian journalists who had been kidnapped in September 2014.
  • On 27 January 2015, an attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli involving gunmen and a carbomb killed at least ten people, including five foreigners. The group’s Tripoli branch claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it was revenge for the death of Libyan al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi in American custody earlier in the month.
  • On 3 February 2015, gunmen claiming to represent ISIL stormed a French-Libyan oil field near the town of Mabruk, killing nine guards.
  • On 15 February 2015, ISIL released a video showing the beheading of 21 Christian Egyptians who had been kidnapped in Sirte. ISIL’s Dabiq magazine had earlier published photos of the Copts and threatened to kill them to

 

 

“avenge the kidnapping of Muslim women by the Egyptian Coptic Church”.

  • On 20 February 2015, the group carried out bombings in Al Qubbah, which targeted a petrol station, a police station and the home of the Libyan parliamentary speaker, killing at least 40 people.
  • ISIL claimed responsibility for a 24 March 2014 suicide carbombing that killed five soldiers and two civilians at an army checkpoint in Benghazi.
  • A 5 April 2015, ISIL’s Tripolitania branch claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a checkpoint outside Misrata, which killed four and wounded 21.
  • On 13 April 2015 militants claiming loyalty to ISIL posted claims of responsibility on Twitter for a bombing outside the Moroccan embassy that caused no casualties, and a gun attack on the South Korean embassy the day before that killed two guards.
  • On 19 April 2015 a video was released online by ISIL showing the killing of approximately 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya. 15 of the men were beheaded, and another group of the same size were shot in the head.
  • On 27 April 2015, the bodies of five men with slit throats were found in the Green Mountain forests. The bodies were identified as five journalists working for a Libyan TV station who had been kidnapped at an ISIL checkpoint in August 2014.
  • On 9 June 2015 US government officials confirmed that ISIL in Libya had captured 86 Eritrean migrants south of Tripoli.
  • On 10 June 2015, ISIL gunmen in Derna killed Nasser Akr and Salem Derbi, two senior commanders of the Al Qaeda affiliated Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna.
  • On 7 January 2016, ISIL carried out a truck bomb attack against a police training center in Zliten, killing at least 60 and wounded around 200.
  • On 25 February 2016, ISIL fighters in Sabratha took control of a security headquarters, killing and beheading 12 security officers before being driven out the next day.

Commentary and significance

The growth of its branch in Libya is seen by ISIL and its proponents as a model for ISIL expansion outside Iraq and Syria.

The Long War Journal wrote that no well-established Libyan militant organizations had pledged their support to the group and that “the Islamic State has failed, thus far, to garner the allegiance of Ansar al Sharia Libya, which is notorious for its role in the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi and remains one of the most powerful jihadist organizations in eastern Libya.

None of Ansar al Sharia’s allies in the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, the Islamist coalition fighting General Khalifa Haftar‘s forces for control of territory, pledged allegiance to Baghdadi. The Islamic State has supporters in Libya, particularly among the jihadist youth. But other groups are still, by all outward appearances, more entrenched.”

Libya Dawn claimed that it had intelligence reports showing that those who claimed to support ISIL in Tripoli were agents provocateur planted by foreign countries to discredit it. The statement was viewed as an attempt to explain away the growing issue of the extremists in western Libya, with ISIL supporters said to be present at the Majr camp in Zliten, and in Sabratha.

Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat and Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil called for the United Nations and European Union to intervene in Libya to prevent the country from becoming a failed state.

Designation as a terrorist organization

Country Date References
 United States 19 May 2016  
 Australia 28 November 2016  

See Sharia Law

 

The sinking of HMS Coventry by Argentine missiles -25th May 1982

War, World War II, , , , , ,

The sinking of HMS Coventry

Image result for sinking of HMS Coventry

1982 Dozens killed as Argentines hit British ships

Dozens of men are feared dead in the seas around the Falkland Islands after the container ship Atlantic Conveyor and the destroyer HMS Coventry were hit by Argentine missiles.

HMS Coventry managed to destroy two Argentine Skyhawk planes with Sea Dart missiles. Another wave of Skyhawks hit her four times with 1,000 bombs. She capsized, losing 21 of her crew.

An explosion and a fireball swept through the operations room. The ship listed to port and the crew and wounded made their way to the upper decks from where they were rescued.

It is thought the Atlantic Conveyor, owned by Cunard, was mistaken for the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes.

She was attacked by two Super Etendards which fired French-built Exocets like the ones that sunk the Coventry’s sister ship HMS Sheffield on 4 May.

See BBC ONTHISDAY for more details

 

HMS Coventry

Image result for sinking of HMS Coventry

HMS Coventry was a Type 42 (Sheffield-class) destroyer of the Royal Navy. Laid down by Cammell Laird and Company, Limited, at Birkenhead on 29 January 1973, she was launched on 21 June 1974 and accepted into service on 20 October 1978 at a cost of £37,900,000.

She was sunk by Argentine Air Force A-4 Skyhawks on 25 May 1982 during the Falklands War.

 

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HMS Coventry
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Coventry
Builder: Cammell Laird
Laid down: 29 January 1973
Launched: 21 June 1974
Commissioned: 10 November 1978
Identification: Pennant number: D118
Fate: Sunk by Argentine aircraft, 25 May 1982
General characteristics
Class and type: Type 42 destroyer
Displacement: 4,820 tonnes
Length: 125 m (410 ft)
Beam: 14.3 m (47 ft)
Draught: 5.8 m (19 ft)
Propulsion: COGOG (Combined Gas or Gas) turbines, 2 shafts producing 36 MW
Speed: 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement: 287
Armament:
Aircraft carried: Westland Lynx HAS.Mk.1/2

 

Background

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The principal role of these ships was to provide the fleet with mid-range anti-air warfare capability with secondary roles of anti-surface and anti-submarine. A total of sixteen Type 42s were built between 1972 and 1985, in three batches, with Coventry the last of the first batch to be commissioned.

To cut costs, the first two batches had 47 feet removed from the bow and the beam-to-length ratio reduced. These early Type 42s performed poorly during trials and were notoriously poor sea-keepers.

Type 42 destroyers were fitted with the Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles designed in the 1960s to counter threats from manned aircraft. Sea Dart was constrained by limitations on its firing capacity and reaction time, but did prove itself during the Falklands War with seven kills, three of these attributed to Coventry.

Service history

1978–1982

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Captain Christopher ‘Beagle’ Burne

Coventry was commissioned on 10 November 1978 under the command of Captain C. P. O. Burne at Portsmouth. Following post-commissioning trials, the ship was used to trial the operation of the new Westland Lynx helicopter from the Type 42 platform, to test the combination’s safe operating limits.

The ship’s first major deployment came in 1980 when she was sent to the Far East; in September of that year, alongside Antrim and Alacrity, she became the first British warship to visit the People’s Republic of China in 30 years. En route back to the UK, Coventry was diverted to the Persian Gulf following the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War, where the ship remained on patrol for six weeks until relieved by the start of the permanent Armilla patrol consisting of Ardent and Apollo.

Throughout 1981 and into 1982, Coventry took part in various exercises in home waters, culminating in her deployment as part of Exercise Springtrain ’82 in March 1982.

 

Falklands Campaign

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See Falklands War

Coventry was taking part in the Exercise Springtrain 82 near the British base of Gibraltar, during March 1982. Along with other vessels involved in the exercise she was detailed for service in the Falklands Campaign. She had a Union Flag painted on the roof of her bridge and a black line painted through her funnel to her waterline to aid recognition, as the Argentines also operated two Type 42 destroyers.

On 27 April, Coventry, in company with Glamorgan, Glasgow, Arrow and Sheffield, entered the Total Exclusion Zone, a 200-mile cordon around the Falkland Islands. Alongside Sheffield and Glasgow, Coventry would form the air defence vanguard for the aircraft carriers following behind.

Coventry‘s contribution to the Falklands War was considerable. Her helicopter was the first to fire Sea Skua air-to-surface anti-ship missiles in action. Her Westland Lynx HAS.Mk.2 fired two Sea Skua missiles on 3 May at ARA Alferez Sobral, the former USS Salish. One missile missed and the other hit a small boat, knocking out the radio aerials and slightly injuring a crewman manning a 20 mm gun. Glasgow‘s Lynx fired two more Sea Skua, and the vessel retreated, with eight crew killed, eight wounded and heavy damage.

Her damaged bridge is now on display at the Naval Museum in Tigre, Argentina. The vessel remains in service in the Argentine Navy.

Published in El Clarín. The circle with the “1” is where General Belgrano was sunk. The “2” shows the last contact with Alferez Sobral.
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Coventry was the first warship to fire Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles in anger when the ship fired three on 9 May at two Learjets of Escuadrón Fénix, just missing the aircraft. Broadsword reported that her radar tracked the missiles merging with the pair of contacts (call signs Litro and Pepe), but they missed the aircraft.

Coventry‘s captain, David Hart Dyke claimed that two A-4C Skyhawks of Grupo 4 were shot down by Sea Darts (C-303 and C-313). However, both were actually lost to bad weather, and both wrecks were found on South Jason Island,

one on the northwest side of the cliffs, the other in shallow waters on the southwest. Lt Casco and Lt Farias were both killed.

The first confirmed kill made by Coventry was an Aérospatiale Puma helicopter of 601 Assault Helicopter Battalion, shot down by a Sea Dart over Choiseul Sound, killing its three-man crew.

Coventry had been one of three Type 42 destroyers providing anti-aircraft cover for the fleet. With the loss of Sheffield and damage to Glasgow on 12 May, forcing her to return to the UK, Coventry was left to carry out the role alone, until other ships could arrive from the UK.

“Type 64”

HMS Cornwall (F99), May 2007

Type 22 frigates

 

Following the loss of Sheffield, a new air defence tactic was devised to try to maximise the task group’s remaining assets. This saw the two remaining Type 42s paired with the two Type 22 frigates (a pairing unofficially termed Type 64) and deployed much further ahead of the main force in an effort to draw attacking aircraft away from the carriers.

The idea was that in the event of Sea Dart being unable to function, the short range Sea Wolf advanced point defence missile fitted to the frigates could be used. In this, Coventry was paired with Broadsword.

25 May 1982

On 25 May 1982, Coventry and Broadsword were ordered to take up position to the north-west of Falkland Sound. There she would act as a decoy to draw Argentinian aircraft away from other ships at San Carlos Bay. In this position, close to land, with not enough open sea between her and the coast, her Sea Dart missiles would be less effective.[6] Broadsword was armed with the Sea Wolf missile, which is for short range anti-aircraft and anti-missile use.

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At first, the trap worked, with FAA A-4B Skyhawk C-244 of Grupo 5 shot down north of Pebble Island by a Sea Dart. Pilot Capitán Hugo Ángel del Valle Palaver was killed. Later a FAA A-4C Skyhawk coded C-304 of Grupo 4 de Caza deployed to San Julian was shot down north east of Pebble Island by another Sea Dart while returning from a mission to San Carlos Water. Capitán Jorge Osvaldo García successfully ejected but was not recovered from the water.

His body was washed ashore in a dinghy at Golding Island in 1983. Garcia’s wingman, Teniente Ricardo Lucero, was also shot down during the raid on San Carlos by a Rapier Missile from ‘T’ Battery, 12 Regiment Royal Artillery, but he was luckier, and ejected into captivity, in front of waiting news crews.

The two ships then came under attack by two waves of two Argentine A-4 Skyhawks. The first wave carried one 1,000 lb free-fall bomb while the second one carried 3 x 250 kg bombs. The four Skyhawks flew so low that Coventry‘s targeting radar could not distinguish between them and the land and failed to lock on. Broadsword attempted to target the first pair of attackers (Capitán Pablo Carballo and Teniente Carlos Rinke) with her Sea Wolf missile system, but her own tracking system locked down during the attack and could not be reset before the aircraft released their bombs.

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Of the bombs released, one bounced off the sea and struck Broadsword‘s flight deck and, though it failed to explode, wrecked the ship’s Lynx helicopter. Coventry claimed to have hit the second Skyhawk (Capitán P. Marcos Carballo) in the tail with small arms fire, although the aircraft returned safely to Argentina. In fact, Carballo’s plane was hit under the right wing by a piece of shrapnel on his way in, that pierced his aircraft’s right fuel tank.

The second pair of Skyhawks (Primer Teniente Mariano A. Velasco and Ensign Alférez Leonardo Barrionuevo), headed for Coventry 90 seconds later at a 20-degree angle to her port bow. Still unable to gain a missile lock, Coventry launched a Sea Dart in an attempt to distract them and turned hard to starboard to reduce her profile. On Broadsword the Sea Wolf system had been reset and successfully acquired the attacking aircraft, but was unable to fire as Coventry‘s turn took her directly into the line of fire.

Coventry used her 4.5-inch gun and small arms against the attacking aircraft. The port Oerlikon 20 mm cannon jammed, leaving the ship with only rifles and machine guns to defend herself. Coventry was struck by three bombs just above the water line on the port side. One of the bombs exploded beneath the computer room, destroying it and the nearby operations room, incapacitating almost all senior officers.

The other entered the forward engine room, exploding beneath the junior ratings dining room where the first aid party was stationed, and the ship immediately began listing to port. The latter hit caused critical damage as it breached the bulkhead between the forward and aft engine rooms, exposing the largest open space in the ship to uncontrollable flooding.

Given the design of the ship, with multiple watertight compartments, two hits virtually anywhere else might have been just survivable. The third bomb did not explode.

Within 20 minutes Coventry had been abandoned and had completely capsized. Coventry sank shortly after. Nineteen of her crew were killed and a further 30 injured. One of the wounded, Paul Mills, suffered complications from a skull fracture sustained in the sinking of the ship and later died on 29 March 1983; he is buried in his home town of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire.

After the ship was struck, her crew, waiting to be rescued, sang “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.[11]

Broadsword subsequently rescued 170 of Coventry‘s crew.

Tributes

Memorial to the dead of HMS Coventry in Holy Trinity Church, Coventry

No member of Coventry received an award for bravery. CPO Aircrewman M J Tupper of No.846 NAS was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his part in the rescue.

After the war, a cross to commemorate crew members who lost their lives was erected on Pebble Island.

David Hart Dyke, Coventry‘s commanding officer during the Falklands War, wrote about the ship’s tale in his book Four Weeks in May: The Loss of HMS Coventry. This was adapted by the BBC into a documentary Sea of Fire, with dramatised sequences and shown in June 2007.

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In 2011 it was announced that a feature-length film would be produced based on Four Weeks in May, to be written and directed by Tom Shankland. The documentary television series Seconds from Disaster featured the attack on the Coventry in the episode “Sinking the Coventry” in December 2012.

The wreck site is a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act. Five months after Coventry sank, a RN Fleet Diving Team conducted an underwater survey of the wreck, which they found lying on her port side in approximately 100 metres (330 ft) of water. This survey was the beginning of “Operation Blackleg”, a series of dives to recover classified documentation and equipment and to make the remaining weapons safe by means of explosive demolition.

The dive team recovered several personal items belonging to Hart Dyke and other officers along with the ship’s battle ensign, later presented to the next Coventry, a Type 22 frigate. The divers also recovered the Cross of Nails, originally presented to the ship by Coventry Cathedral. This too was loaned to the new Coventry, until her decommissioning in 2002, when it returned to the cathedral.

The Cross is now carried on board HMS Diamond (D34), a Type 45 destroyer.

There is a memorial plaque to the dead of HMS Coventry at Holy Trinity Church, Coventry.

 

 

Battle of Britain 1940 – WWII BATTLEFIELD. The Hardest Day

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Source: Battle of Britain 1940 – WWII BATTLEFIELD. The Hardest Day

Battle of Britain – Triple Aces – Who were the ‘Triple Flying Aces’

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Triple Aces were pilots who were credited with shooting down 15 or more enemy aircraft

Source: Battle of Britain – Triple Aces – Who were the ‘Triple Flying Aces’

Eurovision Song Contest 2017

Blog, My Life

Eurovision 2017

Challenge

Right then , the wife is in the kitchen cooking  a beautiful authentic chicken curry (wish you could smell it!) and the kids are busy or otherwise engaged. So I have challenged myself to watch the WHOLE of Eurovision  2017.

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I know what your thinking ,  Gez – get a life , sad git – but I’ve been busy all week and am now going to chill on the sofa , cold beer in hand and watch the show.

Plus the show reminds me of a younger age when life was less cluttered , more complete and I could enjoy the simple things in life and have no worries – nobody said life would be easy.

 

Wish me luck!

 

 

Pope John Paul II shot and wounded on 13th May 1981

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Pope John Paul II assassination attempt

13th May 1983

 

The first attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II took place on Wednesday, 13 May 1981, in St. Peter’s Square at Vatican City. The Pope was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca while he was entering the square.

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The Pope was struck four times, and suffered severe blood loss. Ağca was apprehended immediately, and later sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court. The Pope later forgave Ağca for the assassination attempt.

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He was pardoned by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi at the Pope’s request and was deported to Turkey in June 2000.

Pope John Paul II assassination attempt
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The location of the shooting, marked by a stone tablet, in St. Peter’s Square
Location St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City
Date 13 May 1981
Target Pope John Paul II
Attack type
 Shooting
Weapons Browning Hi-Power
Non-fatal injuries
 3
Perpetrator Mehmet Ali Ağca (Grey Wolves)

Attempted assassination

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Beginning in August 1980 Ağca, under the alias of Vilperi, began criss-crossing the Mediterranean region, changing passports and identities, perhaps to hide his point of origin in Sofia, Bulgaria. He entered Rome on 10 May 1981, coming by train from Milan. According to Ağca’s later testimony, he met with three accomplices in Rome, one a fellow Turk and two Bulgarians, with operation being commanded by Zilo Vassilev, the Bulgarian military attaché in Italy.

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Bekir Çelenk

He said that he was assigned this mission by Turkish mafioso Bekir Çelenk in Bulgaria. According to Ağca, the plan was for him and the back-up gunman Oral Çelik to open fire on the pope in St. Peter’s Square and escape to the Bulgarian embassy under the cover of the panic generated by a small explosion.

On 13 May, they sat in the square, writing postcards waiting for the Pope to arrive. When the Pope passed through an adoring and excited crowd of supporters, Ağca fired four shots at 17:17 with a 9mm Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol, and critically wounded him. He fled the scene as the crowd was in shock and disposed of the pistol by throwing it under a truck, but was grabbed by Vatican security chief Camillo Cibin,

a nun, and several spectators who prevented him from firing more shots or escaping, and he was arrested. All four bullets hit John Paul II; two of them lodged in his lower intestine while the other two hit his left index finger and right arm and also injured two bystanders: Ann Odre, of Buffalo, New York, was struck in the chest, and Rose Hall was slightly wounded in the arm.

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The Pope was immediately rushed to the hospital while the authorities combed the site for evidence. Çelik panicked and fled without setting off his bomb or opening fire.

 

 

The site of the shooting is marked by a small marble tablet bearing John Paul’s personal coat of arms and the date in Roman numerals.

 

 

The Fiat Popemobile in which Pope John Paul II was riding at the time of the attempted assassination. This vehicle is now in the Vatican Museums.

Incarceration of Ağca

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Ağca was sentenced in July 1981 to life imprisonment for the assassination attempt, but was pardoned by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in June 2000 at the Pope’s request. He was then extradited to Turkey, where he was imprisoned for the 1979 murder of left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi and two bank raids carried out in the 1970s. Despite a plea for early release in November 2004, a Turkish court announced that he would not be eligible for release until 2010. Nonetheless he was released on parole on 12 January 2006.

However, on 20 January 2006, the Turkish Supreme Court ruled that his time served in Italy could not be deducted from his Turkish sentence and he was returned to jail.

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Ağca was released from prison on 18 January 2010, after almost 29 years behind bars.

Relationship with Pope John Paul II

 

Pope John Paul II in 1980.

 

Following the shooting, Pope John Paul II asked people to:

“pray for my brother [Ağca] … whom I have sincerely forgiven.”

In 1983, he and Ağca met and spoke privately at Rome’s Rebibbia Prison, where Ağca was being held. Ağca reportedly kissed the Pope’s ring at the conclusion of their visit; some mistakenly thought the Pope was hearing Agca’s confession. The Pope was also in touch with Ağca’s family over the years, meeting his mother in 1987 and his brother, Muezzin Agca, a decade later.

Although Ağca was quoted as saying that “to me [the Pope] was the incarnation of all that is capitalism”, and attempted to murder him, Ağca developed a friendship with the pontiff. In early February 2005, during the Pope’s illness, Ağca sent a letter to the Pope wishing him well.

Motivations for the assassination attempt

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Several theories exist concerning Ağca’s assassination attempt. One, strongly advocated since the early 1980s by Michael Ledeen among others, is that the assassination attempt had originated from Moscow and that the KGB had instructed the Bulgarian and East German secret services to carry out the mission.

The Bulgarian Secret Service was allegedly instructed by the KGB to assassinate the Pope because of his support of Poland’s Solidarity movement, seeing it as one of the most significant threats to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe.[citation needed]

Ağca himself has given multiple conflicting statements on the assassination at different times. Attorney Antonio Marini stated:

“Ağca has manipulated all of us, telling hundreds of lies, continually changing versions, forcing us to open tens of different investigations”.

Originally Ağca claimed to be a member of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but they denied any ties to him.

The “Bulgarian Connection”

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KGB Director Yuri Andropov was convinced that Pope John Paul II’s election was the product of an Anglo-German conspiracy orchestrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski to undermine Soviet hegemony in largely Catholic Poland and ultimately to precipitate the collapse of the entire Soviet Union. The Pope’s announcement of a pilgrimage to Warsaw fuelled Andropov’s apprehension, with Andropov issuing a secret memorandum to Soviet schoolteachers:

The Pope is our enemy…. Due to his uncommon skills and great sense of humor he is dangerous, because he charms everyone, especially journalists. Besides, he goes for cheap gestures in his relations with the crowd, for instance, [he] puts on a highlander’s hat, shakes all hands, kisses children, etc…. It is modeled on American presidential campaigns…. Because of the activities of the Church in Poland our activities designed to atheize the youth not only cannot diminish but must intensely develop…. In this respect all means are allowed and we cannot afford sentiments.

Ağca had made several trips to Sofia, Bulgaria. He also claimed to have had contacts with a Bulgarian agent in Rome whose cover was the Bulgarian national airline office. Soon after the shooting, Sergei Antonov, a Bulgarian working in Rome for Balkan Air, was arrested based on Ağca’s testimony and accused of being the Bulgarian agent who masterminded the plot.

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Paul Henze

In 1986, after a three-year trial, he was found not guilty. According to the CIA’s chief of staff in Turkey, Paul Henze, Ağca later stated that in Sofia, he was once approached by the Bulgarian Secret Service and Turkish mafiosi, who offered him three million German marks to assassinate the Pope.

American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave claimed that the Bulgarians chose Ağca to supply themselves with plausible deniability; choosing a member of the Grey Wolves that had allegedly been involved with the local KGB in drug smuggling routes through Bulgaria to Western Europe would distance themselves because of the implausibility of the link.

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Some people, notably Edward S. Herman, co-author with Frank Brodhead of The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection (1986), and Michael Parenti, felt Ağca’s story was dubious, noting that Ağca made no claims of Bulgarian involvement until he had been isolated in solitary confinement and visited by Italian Military Intelligence (SISMI) agents.

On 25 September 1991, former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman (now Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy) revealed that his colleagues, following orders, had falsified their analysis to support the accusation. He declared to the US Senate intelligence committee that:

“the CIA hadn’t any proof” concerning this alleged “Bulgarian connection”.

Neither the Severino Santiapichi court nor the investigation by judge Franco Ionta found evidence that SISMI planted Ağca’s story. A French lawyer, Christian Roulette, who authored books blaming Western intelligence agencies for the assassination attempt, testified in court that the documentary evidence he referred to actually did not exist.

Grey Wolves

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Former Bulgarian Intelligence Service pin

The Bulgarian secret services have always protested their alleged involvement and argued that Ağca’s story was an anti-Communist plant placed by the Grey Wolves, the Italian secret service, and the CIA – all three of whom had co-operated in NATO’s secret Gladio network. Gladio was at the time involved in Italy’s strategy of tension, also followed in Turkey by Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of Gladio.

The Pope’s assassination would hereafter have taken place in this frame . Edward Herman has argued that Michael Ledeen, who was involved in the Iran-Contra Affair and had alleged ties to the Italian P2 masonic lodge also linked to Gladio, was employed by the CIA to propagate the Bulgarian theory.

Indeed, Le Monde diplomatique alleged that Abdullah Çatlı, a leader of the Grey Wolves, had organised the assassination attempt “in exchange for the sum of 3 million German Marks” for the Grey Wolves.

In Rome, Catli declared to the judge in 1985 “that he had been contacted by the BND, the German intelligence agency, which would have promised him a nice sum of money if he implicated the Russian and Bulgarian services in the assassination attempt against the Pope”. According to colonel Alparslan Türkes, the founder of the Grey Wolves,

“Catli has cooperated in the frame of a secret service working for the good of the state”.

The Mitrokhin Commission’s claims

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According to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, documents recovered from former East German intelligence services confirm the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II was ordered by the Soviet KGB and assigned to Bulgarian and East German agents with the Stasi to co-ordinate the operation and cover up the traces afterwards.[citation needed] However, Markus Wolf, former Stasi spy-master, has denied any links, and claimed the files had already been sent in 1995.

In March 2006, pending national elections, the controversial Mitrokhin Commission, set up by Silvio Berlusconi and headed by Forza Italia senator Paolo Guzzanti, supported once again the Bulgarian theory, which had been denounced by John Paul II during his travel to Bulgaria. Senator Guzzanti claimed that “leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt”, alleging that “the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul” because of his support for Solidarity, relaying “this decision to the military secret services” (and not the KGB).

The report’s claims were based on recent computer analysis of photographs that purported to demonstrate Antonov’s presence in St Peter’s Square during the shooting and on information brought by the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, a controversial figure whose last feat was to indict Rwandese president Paul Kagame, claiming he had deliberately provoked the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against his own ethnic group in order to take power.

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According to Le Figaro, Bruguière, who is in close contacts as well with Moscow as with Washington, D.C., including intelligence agents, has been accused by many of his colleagues of “privileging the reason of state over law.”

Both Russia and Bulgaria condemned the report. “For Bulgaria, this case closed with the court decision in Rome in March 1986”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev said, while also recalling the Pope’s comments during his May 2002 visit to Bulgaria.

Senator Guzzanti said that the commission had decided to re-open the report’s chapter on the assassination attempt in 2005, after the Pope wrote about it in his last book, Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums. The Pope wrote that he was convinced the shooting was not Ağca’s initiative and that “someone else masterminded it and someone else commissioned it”.

The Mitrokhin Commission also claimed Romano Prodi, a former Prime Minister of Italy, was the “KGB’s man in Italy”. At the end of December 2006, Mario Scaramella, one of the main informers of senator Guzzanti, was arrested and charged, among other things, of defamation. Rome’s prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, in charge of the investigations concerning Mario Scaramella, cited by La Repubblica, showed that Nicolò Pollari, head of SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency and indicted in the Imam Rapito affair, as well as SISMI n°2, Marco Mancini, arrested in July 2006 for the same reason, were some of the informers, alongside Mario Scaramella, of senator Paolo Guzzanti.

Beside targeting Romano Prodi and his staff, this “network”, according to Pietro Salvitti’s words, also aimed at defaming General Giuseppe Cucchi (current director of the CESIS), Milan’s judges Armando Spataro, in charge of the Imam Rapito case, and Guido Salvini, as well as La Repubblica reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D’Avanzo, who discovered the Yellowcake forgery affair.

The investigation also showed a connection between Scaramella and the CIA, in particular through Filippo Marino, one of Scaramella’s closest partners since the 1990s and co-founder of the ECPP, who lives today in the US. Marino has acknowledged in an interview an association with former and active CIA officers, including Robert Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan, indicted by prosecutor Armando Spataro for having coordinated the abduction of Abu Omar, the Imam Rapito affair

Spies in the Vatican

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In 2009, journalist and former army intelligence officer John Koehler published Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union’s Cold War Against the Catholic Church. Mining mostly East German and Polish secret police archives, Koehler claims the attempt was “KGB-backed” and gives details.

Possible Vatican connection

On 26 June 2000, Pope John Paul II released the “Third Secret of Fatima” in which he said that Ağca’s assassination attempt was the fulfilment of this Secret. 13 May (the date of the assassination attempt) is the anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary to the three children of Fatima, something the Pope has always regarded as significant, attributing his survival on that day to her protection. Some doubt the Church’s full disclosure of the contents of this Secret, believing that it actually predicted the Apocalypse.

While in prison on remand, Ağca was widely reported to have developed an obsession with Fatima and during the trial claimed that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ and called on the Vatican to release the Third Secret.

On 31 March 2005, just two days prior to the Pope’s death, Ağca gave an interview to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. He claimed to be working on a book about the assassination attempt. La Repubblica quoted Ağca claiming at length that he had accomplices in the Vatican who helped him with the assassination attempt, saying “the devil is inside Vatican’s wall”. He also said:

“Many calculating politicians are worried about what revealing the complete truth would do. Some of them fear that the Vatican will have a spiritual collapse like the Berlin Wall. Let me ask, why don’t the CIA, the Sismi, the Sisde and other intelligence agencies reveal the truth about the Orlandi case?
Q: They say it’s because there is still some uncertainty in the Emanuela Orlandi case.
Ağca: In the 1980s, certain Vatican supporters believed that I was the new messiah and to free me they organised all the intrigue about Emanuela Orlandi and the other incidents they won’t reveal.”

 

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Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, disappeared at age 15 on 22 June 1983. Anonymous phone calls offered her release in exchange for the release of Ağca. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was alleged to be part of the kidnapping, although no charges were ever laid.

A week after this interview, Associated Press reported Ağca denying having made such claims.

In November 2010, Ağca publicly asserted that Cardinal Agostino Casaroli had been the man behind the assassination attempt on John Paul II in 1981.

 

Masterchef 2017 – A Dirty Doner Kebab & Cold Beer

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Masterchef Final

2017

 

masterchef 2017 beer & kebab 2 with final

Is it wrong that I sat transfixed on the edge of my seat ( Steve messed up ) watching  the final of Masterchef 2017  –  whilst eating a dirty (Large) doner kebab & drinking a cold beer?

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The funny thing is until about 2 – 3 weeks ago I avoided kebabs of any description and even the smell of them made me feel like gagging. I don’t recall where or when this dislike of the humble kebab originated , but as a youth after a hard nights/weekend drinking the best and only thing to fill a hungry was a kebab – at least in the circles I moved in.

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Somewhere on my journey through life I give-up on kebab’s and haven’t had one in about 10 – 15 years. Anyways A few weeks ago I got a random , mad craving for a kebab and had to have one and it was the best tasting , mouth watering takeaway meal I have ever eaten. It was that good that I ordered the same for the past few weeks in a row. Saves cooking & washing up – I assure the wife!

When I first moved to London at 18 , me and my mates would often party all night long (sometimes for days on end) and when hungry finally called us we use to go to this Kebab shop in Piccadilly.

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The old guy there used proper bits of lamb meat on the skew and these were the best kebabs I have ever eaten until this day. I’m going back 25 years here – long before kebabs where a takeaway favourite and pizza were king.

Anyways I’m waffling now , but I really enjoyed that kebab ( stop talking about kebabs) and am going to bed because my heads starting to spin – How did that happen?

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It was a cracking final tonight and I knew one of the ladies would win – either Saliha  or Giovanna – poor Steve had a terrible day at the office – after so many good rounds. But such is life

Well Done Saliha – You earned it

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Saliha Mahmood- Ahmed