In a chilling new development, Habeeb Al Sadr, Iraq's ambassador to the Vatican, warned that Pope Francis could be on IS' list of targets, ahead of his visit to Albania this weekend and Turkey in November.
This will be the pontiff's first visit to a Muslim-majority country.
Al Sadr told Italian newspaper La Nazione: “What has been declared by the self-declared Islamic State is clear – they want to kill the Pope. The threats against the Pope are credible. I believe they could try to kill him during one of his overseas trips or even in Rome. There are members of ISIL who are not Arabs but Canadian, American, French, British, also Italians.”
The 77-year-old leader of the Catholic Church has spoken out in support of US attempts to halt the spread of the militant Islamic group. In an interview last month, the Pope said: “In cases like this, where there is an unjust aggression, then it is licit to halt the aggressor. But I stress ‘halt’. I don’t say bomb, or make war, but rather stop him.”
The ambassador said such comments have made the pontiff a target, as well as his condemnation of human rights abuses against Christians in Syria and Iraq. Al Sadr added: “This band of criminals does not just issue threats – in Iraq they have already violated and destroyed some of the most sacred sites of the Shiite faith. They have struck at Yazidi and Christian places of worship. They have declared that whoever is not with them, is against them. Either convert or be killed. And they are doing it – it is a genocide.”
The militants currently control large areas of Iraq and Syria, killing those who stand in their path.
However, the Vatican responded to the claims, saying that it had received no credible reports of a threat to the Pope’s life.