[Infowarrior] - Vatican gets anti-terror squad

[Richard Forno]

Pope gives blessing to anti-christ terrorist squad
Gendarmes get Interpol link, Swiss Guards get guns
By Joe Fay → More by this author
Published Thursday 12th June 2008 10:46 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/12/pope_terror_team/

The Vatican’s security service will be tapping into Interpol’s  
computers after setting up an in-house anti-terrorism unit.

According to reports, the Vatican’s Gendarmerie has put together a  
"rapid intervention group" and an "anti-sabotage department" as sub- 
units of its gendarmerie corps. The Vatican will also work more  
closely with Interpol, giving it access to the euro-police  
organisation's database of shifty-looking terrorist types and other  
useful information.

The formation of the squad might seem a little belated, given that the  
last pope was himself the victim of an assassination attempt, while  
the incumbent has been known to put noses out of joint with his  
pronouncements about the state of relations between the Islamic world  
and, er, Byzantium.

Then again, all change takes time, and this is the oldest institution  
in Europe we’re talking about here.

According to L'Osservatore Romano the beefed-up security organisation  
will operate both inside and outside the Vatican, with gendarmes  
travelling with the pope, presumably sweeping cathedrals, bishops  
palaces and the other venues he visits for bombs, bugs, heretics,  
demons, and the like.

The Vatican Gendarmerie should not be confused with the Swiss Guards,  
the flamboyantly dressed crack troops that provide the tiny Episcopal  
state’s more visible security.

For all that they look like a relic of the 16th century, the stripey- 
panted guards have also been given anti-terrorism training, and now  
pack SIG P75 pistols and Heckler-Koch sub-machine guns about their  
baggy-trousered person. Presumably these will only deployed if their  
halberds don’t do the job.

Of course, for the conspiracy-minded out there, it is clear that  
earthly terrorists aren’t what this beefing-up of security is all  
about. The director of the Vatican Observatory said just last month  
that it was entirely plausible that aliens are “out there”. Perhaps  
Pope Benedict knows more than he’s letting on, and the Swiss Guards  
are even now unpacking a consignment of photon torpedoes to ward off a  
surprise attack. ®