Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Islamic State is Muslim like Irish Republican Army was Catholic

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said Islamic State militants terrorizing the Middle East are a distortion of "genuine" Islam much as the Irish Republican Army was a "perversion" of Catholicism.
Dolan's comments to CNN on Tuesday reflect similar statements about the Islamic State group from Pope Francis, but they also echo some of President Barack Obama's controversial remarks on Islam, Christianity and the history of violence carried out in the name of religion.
"The IRA claimed to be Catholic," Dolan told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. "They were baptized. They had a Catholic identity." But, he continued, "what they were doing was a perversion of everything the church stood for."
The spiritual leader of New York's 2.8 million Catholics, Dolan said that likewise, the Islamic State extremists "do not represent genuine Islamic thought" but are "a particularly perverted form of Islam."

"The analogy [to the IRA] is somewhat accurate," said Dolan, an Irish-American who on March 17 will serve as grand marshal of the city's St. Patrick's Day parade.
"These are not pure, these are not real Muslims. Now what we need and what Pope Francis has led the world in saying, is we need the temperate, moderate, genuine forces of Islam to rise up and say this -- they do not represent us. Now, that's beginning to happen. God can bring good out of evil."
Francis has frequently said the Islamic State does not represent genuine Islam and that "all religions have these little groups." And he has pointed to instances when Catholics used religion to justify terrible violence.
But Obama sparked a fierce backlash at last month's National Prayer Breakfast when he said the Islamic State does not represent genuine Islam. He also said Christians should not "get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place," because in the past believers also "committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."
Obama has also been criticized for not highlighting the fact that many Islamic State victims are targeted because they belong to the relatively small but ancient Christian communities in the Middle East.
Dolan showed no such hesitation this week, saying he believed the group was conducting a "systematic, well-choreographed, very well-focused attempt to eradicate the ancient Christian population in the Mideast."
The IRA was a violent extremist group that existed in various forms throughout most of the 20th century, staging brutal terrorist bombings and attacks aimed at ending British sovereignty in largely Protestant Northern Ireland.
Some Catholic leaders strongly denounced the IRA and sought to downplay the religious aspects of the violence, but the IRA also found support among many clergy and the faithful.

The IRA largely ended its armed struggle after the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement, although some holdouts remain.
Credit to David Gibson 

Egypt bombs Islamic State targets in Libya after 21 Egyptians beheaded

Egyptian jets bombed Islamic State targets in Libya on Monday, a day after the group there released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians, drawing Cairo directly into the conflict across its border.

Egypt said the pre-dawn strike hit militant camps, training sites and weapons storage areas in the neighbouring oil-producing country, where factional fighting has unleashed virtual anarchy and created havens for jihadi Islamists.

While Cairo is believed to have provided clandestine support to a Libyan general fighting a rogue government in Tripoli, the 21 decapitations pushed President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi into open action, expanding his battle against Islamist militancy.

"And let those near and far know that the Egyptians have a shield that protects and preserves the security of the country, and a sword that eradicates terrorism," the Egyptian military said in a statement.

Egyptian state television aired footage of fighter planes leaving a hangar with "Long live Egypt" emblazoned on their tails, followed by night-vision aerial footage showing bomb explosions and the aircraft returning in early daylight.

Libya's air force also participated in Monday's attack, which targeted Derna, an eastern coastal city regarded as a base for fighters of the ultra-radical Islamic State.

"There are losses among individuals, ammunition and the (Islamic State) communication centres," Libyan air force commander Saqer al-Joroushi told Egyptian state television, adding that dozens had been killed.

Joroushi, who is loyal to Libya's internationally recognised government, which set up camp in the city of Tobruk after losing control of the capital Tripoli, said there would be more strikes on Tuesday.

The rival Tripoli-based parliament, which is supported by some Islamist groups, said the air raids were an assault on Libya's sovereignty. Omar al-Hassi, premier of the self-appointed Tripoli government, said three children, two elderly men and a 21-year-old woman were killed in the attack.

It was not possible to confirm either faction's accounts of the number or nature of the casualties.

CHRISTIAN ANGER

Cairo called on the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to broaden the scope of their operations to include Libya, highlighting how the insurgent group has expanded its reach around the Arab world.

Since the fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, a number of Islamist movements have taken hold in Libya. Recently, some have declared ties to Islamic State and claimed high-profile attacks in what appears to be an intensifying campaign.

The U.S. military estimated in December that only around 200 Islamic State fighters were operating in the country.

Egypt is not the only Arab nation sucked into confrontation with the group by the gruesome killings of its citizens.

Jordan has taken a leading role in conducting air strikes against the group in Syria and Iraq this month after the militants released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.

The 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were marched to a beach, forced to kneel and then beheaded on video, which was broadcast via a website that supports Islamic State.

The victims were among thousands of unemployed Egyptians desperately seeking work in Libya, despite the risks. Egypt's foreign ministry said it was banning travel to Libya and had set up a crisis centre to bring home Egyptians.

Thousands of traumatized mourners gathered at the Coptic church in al-Our village, where 13 of the 21 victims came from, struggling to come to terms with the fate of compatriots who paid a gruesome price for simply seeking work.

Before the videoed killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: "Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for." Afterwards, he says: "And we will conquer Rome, by the will of Allah."

The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, condemned the beheadings. "They were killed simply for the fact that they were Christians," he said at the Vatican.

Egypt's Coptic Christian pope was one of the public figures who backed Sisi when he, as army chief, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against him.

The killings put pressure on Sisi to show he is in control of national security, even as he makes progress against Islamist militant insurgents in the Sinai, some of whom have recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

"It's swift and decisive, it's not about strategy, it's about containing anger within Egypt," said Hassan Hassan, co-author of a book on Islamic State.

"Just like in Jordan, it's more about saving face, saying: 'You can't mess with us'. .... It's likely to evolve into a sustained strategy of helping in the fight against ISIS (Islamic State) in neighbouring countries."

Fears the crisis in Libya could spill across the border had already prompted Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, to upgrade its military hardware.

Egypt signed a 5.2 billion-euro deal to buy French weaponry on Monday, Egyptian media said, including 24 Rafale combat jets made by Dassault Aviation, a multi-mission naval frigate, and air-to-air missiles.

Credit to Yara Bayoumy