ISIS Posting Pics of Targets in Rome and Milan via Social Media

Photos of handwritten notes in front of landmarks read, “We are on your streets, we are locating targets.”

Related:

• Ominous Sign of the Future: Muslim Migrants from Libya throw Christians Overboard
• For ISIS, 'All Roads lead to Rome'
• ISIS Targets Rome, 'Nation of the Cross', in Libya beheading video

Handwritten ISIS notes ‘in front of Rome, Milan monuments'

ANSA, April 28, 2015

(ANSA) – Rome, April 27 – ISIS supporters are tweeting photos of handwritten pieces of paper signed by ISIS being held in front of well-known locations and monuments in Rome and Milan, intelligence and counter-terrorism expert Rita Katz said on the website of her organisation SITE. “We are on your streets, we are locating targets,” the signs reportedly say.

Italian police round up terror suspects in failed Vatican plot

"Italian officials have made clear they take seriously the threat of the Islamic State group to conquer Rome..."

Related: 

• For ISIS, 'All Roads lead to Rome'
• ISIS Targets Rome, 'Nation of the Cross, in Libya Beheading Video
• Ominous Sign of the Future: Muslim Migrants from Libya throw Christians Overboard

Italian police round up terror suspects in failed Vatican plot, deadly Pakistan attack
FoxNews.com — April 24, 2015

Italian security forces were rounding up 18 Islamic extremists Friday who prosecutors said were behind a failed 2010 plot to attack the Vatican as well as a bombing at a Pakistan market that killed more than 100 a year earlier.

Prosecutor Mauro Mura told reporters in Cagliari, Sardinia, on Friday that wiretaps indicated the suspected terrorists, including two former bodyguards for Usama bin Laden, planned a bomb attack at the Vatican and went as far as to send a suicide bomber to Rome. Mura said the attack plans never went further and that the suicide bomber left Italy, though it wasn't clear why.

“We don’t have proof, we have strong suspicion,” Mario Carta, head of the police unit leading the investigation, said when asked for more details on a possible attack against the seat of the Catholic church.

Ominous Sign of the Future: Muslim Migrants from Libya throw Christians Overboard

The fate of the murdered Christian migrants is the image of our future, unless we form a human chain to resist our attackers.

by Ralph H. Sidway

Survivors from the shipwreck of a boat arrive on April 15, 2015 aboard the tanker Maria Bottiglieri in the port of Corigliano Calabro, Italy (AFP Photo/Alfonso Di Vincenzo)

The shared experience. 

How people, often from very different backgrounds, countries, nationalities and races, and even religions, can bond in simple human camaraderie, especially when going through difficult challenges and trials together, helping one another, looking out for each other, protecting not just one’s own family but those of one’s fellow travelers, one’s fellow strugglers. 

The shared experience.

Yet in the Associated Press report of the horrific crime against migrant Christians — fellow migrants seeking a better life — we see into the Muslim heart of darkness:

ROME (AP) — Italy's migration crisis took on a deadly new twist Thursday as police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants had thrown 12 Christians overboard during a recent crossing from Libya, and an aid group said another 41 were feared drowned in a separate incident. 

Palermo police said they had detained 15 people suspected in the high seas assault, which they learned of while interviewing tearful survivors from Nigeria and Ghana who had arrived in Palermo Wednesday morning after being rescued at sea by the ship Ellensborg. 

The 15 were accused of multiple homicide aggravated by religious hatred, police said in a statement. 

For ISIS, ‘All Roads lead to Rome’

The Islamic State caliphate has its sights set on large Christian targets, aims to ‘break the crosses’, both literally and metaphorically.

by Ralph H. Sidway

ISIS shows their black flag flying
over the Vatican.

The Islamic State has named many targets, including the “lands of al-Haramein” (two holy places), i.e. Saudi Arabia, and Spain. But its most significant goal seems to be Rome.  

When the Islamic State released its video in February of the beheading of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptians on the coast of Libya, they titled it, “A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross.” After the slaughter, the speaker says, “And we will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission…”

Italian officials immediately reacted, warning “ISIS is at the door.” The Washington Post reports that, 

Our Italian allies... are responding with the correct initial steps, including placing portions of both their military and the capable Carabinieri paramilitary forces on higher alert, adding more nautical patrols between Libya and their southern islands; sharing intelligence throughout NATO and European Union/Interpol channels; and publicizing these measures to appear a more hardened target.

The Libyan coastal area which the Islamic State used for its bloody “Message” is only 109 miles from the island of Lampedusa, and just 300 miles from Sicily; from there it’s just a short jump to mainland Italy. But it may not take an actual invasion force from the Islamic State in Libya to launch a terrorist attack. The enemy may already be taking up positions inside Italy.

ISIS Targets Rome, ‘Nation of the Cross’, in Libya Beheading Video

“ISIS is at the door, warns Italy.”

by Ralph H. Sidway

In addition to using their savage beheadings and subsequent videos to try to “hotwire the apocalypse,” as Islam historian and Mahdi specialist Timothy Furnish calls it, in the most recent ISIS video, showing the beheading in Libya of twenty one Coptic Christian men, the narrator proclaimed an ominous goal.

According to a report by Jordan Schachtel of Breitbart News:

The Islamic State’s Al Hayat Media, the group that has published the previous beheading videos in the Middle East, produced the Libya video titled, “A Message Signed With Blood To The Nation Of The Cross.” 

“All praise is due to Allah the strong and mighty,” said an ISIS jihadist dressed in military fatigues in American-accented English. “And may blessings and peace be upon the ones sent by the sword as a mercy to all the worlds,” he added... 

After the ISIS leader finishes speaking, his fellow terrorists then commence the beheading of the 21 Egyptian Christians. “And we will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission, the promise of our Prophet, peace be upon him,” The militant leader says after his comrades slaughter the Christian hostages.

Islamic State’s magazine shows its flag flying over the Vatican

via Jihad Watch — October 13, 2014

The Islamic State — extremists! No other Muslims think this way, right?

Sheik Ali Al-Faqir, former Jordanian minister of religious endowment, said this on Al-Aqsa TV on May 2, 2008: “We proclaim that we will conquer Rome, like Constantinople was conquered once…” 

Hamas MP and Islamic cleric Yunis Al-Astal said this, also on Al-Aqsa TV, on April 11, 2008: “Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad.”

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most prominent and renowned imam in the world, in writing about “signs of the victory of Islam,” referred to a hadith: “The Prophet Muhammad was asked: ‘What city will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyya?’ He answered: ‘The city of Hirqil [i.e. the Byzantine emperor Heraclius] will be conquered first’ – that is, Constantinople”¦ Romiyya is the city called today ‘Rome,’ the capital of Italy. The city of Hirqil [that is, Constantinople] was conquered by the young 23-year-old Ottoman Muhammad bin Morad, known in history as Muhammad the Conqueror, in 1453. The other city, Romiyya, remains, and we hope and believe [that it too will be conquered]. This means that Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice – once from the South, from Andalusia, and a second time from the East, when it knocked several times on the door of Athens.” And last May a Kosovar Muslim in Iraq said: “We shall conquer Jerusalem from you, oh Jews! We shall conquer Rome and Andalusia, Allah willing.”

ISIS magazine shows its flag flying over Vatican 

ANSA, October 13, 2014:

(ANSA) – Vatican City, October 13 – The black flag of Islamic militant group ISIS is shown flying above St. Peter’s Square on the cover of the group’s magazine Dabiq, which called in its latest issue for a war against the Catholic Church.

Meriam Ibrahim lands in Rome, meets with Pope Francis

by Elise Harris, Catholic News Agency via Pravmir
July 24, 2014

Vatican City, Jul 24, 2014 / 06:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Sudanese woman spared of a death sentence for refusing to renounce her Christian faith arrived in Rome with her family Thursday, where they met with Pope Francis a few hours after landing.

Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim and her child Maya at the Vatican's Santa Marta residence, July 24, 2014. Credit: ANSA/Osservatore Romano

“Pope Francis was very tender with her, her husband, who was in prison, and thanked her for her courageous witness to perseverance in the Faith,” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said of the encounter in a July 24 statement.

Describing the meeting between the young family and the Roman Pontiff as “very serene and affectionate,” Fr. Lombardi explained that for him encounter was “a gesture of closeness and solidarity for those who suffer for their faith.”

According to Vatican Radio, Ibrahim and her husband Daniel Wani, a U.S. citizen, as well as their two children, 1-year-old Martin and 2-month-old Maya, who was born in prison, met the Roman Pontiff in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse at 1:00 p.m. local time.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also welcomed the family at the airport, calling it “a day of celebration.”

'Rome and whole world will be conquered', says leader of Islamic State

Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch analyses the recent statement by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the newly-named Islamic State. 

In addition to Mr. Spencer's article below, I would like to point out the irony of the dramatic rise of ISIS. This brazen threat to conquer Rome in the name of Islam is just one of thousands of Muslim refutations  — beginning with the Quran and the sayings of Muhammad — of Pope Francis' assertion, shared by many in the West, that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.” 

Since Abu Bakr is an Islamic scholar certified in fiqh and therefore an authoritative Muslim teacher able to issue fatwas, it would be interesting to see a debate between him and Pope Francis. Perhaps, in a certain sense, that is exactly what we are seeing.  

Rome and whole world will be conquered, says leader of Islamic State

by Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch — July 2, 2014

I posted the full statement from al-Baghdadi here yesterday, but this aspect of it is worth noting separately: Rome, as the leading global center of Christianity, has long been a focus of jihadist aspirations.

“Imam Ahmad reported in his Musnad that Abdullah bin ‘Amr bin Al-‘As (may God be pleased with him) reports, Whilst we were around the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) writing down, he was asked, ‘Which of the two cities is to be opened first, Constantinople or Rome?’ He (the Prophet) answered, ‘The city of Heraclius will be opened first!’”  (Imam Ahmad, and Al-Albany)

Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi quoted this hadith a few years ago and added: “This means that Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice – once from the South, from Andalusia, and a second time from the East, when it knocked several times on the door of Athens.”

And the Saudi Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-’Arifi, imam of the mosque of King Fahd Defense Academy, once boasted: “We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it. Yes, the Christians, who carve crosses on the breasts of the Muslims in Kosovo – and before then in Bosnia, and before then in many places in the world – will yet pay us the Jiziya [poll tax paid by non-Muslims under Muslim rule], in humiliation, or they will convert to Islam.”

There are many more such statements here.

“Rome will be conquered next, says leader of ‘Islamic State,’” by Damien McElroy, the Telegraph, July 1, 2014:

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the ‘Islamic State’ stretching across Iraq and Syria, has vowed to lead the conquest of Rome as he called on Muslims to immigrate to his new land to fight under its banner around the globe.