Turkey recalls Vatican ambassador after pope calls Armenian killings “genocide”
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the slaughter of Armenians by calling the massacre by Ottoman Turks “the first genocide of the 20th century” and urging the international community to recognize it as such. Turkey immediately responded by recalling its ambassador and accusing Francis of spreading hatred and “unfounded claims.”
Francis issued the pronouncement during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica commemorating the centenary that was attended by Armenian church leaders and President Serge Sarkisian, who praised the pope for calling a spade a spade and “delivering a powerful message to the international community.”
“The words of the leader of a church with 1 billion followers cannot but have a strong impact,” he told The Associated Press.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey, however, denies a genocide took place. It has insisted that the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
Video purports to show Islamic State militants bombing ancient ruins
BAGHDAD — Islamic State militants hammered, bulldozed and ultimately blew up parts of the ancient Iraqi Assyrian city of Nimrud, destroying a site dating back to the 13th century B.C., an online militant video purportedly shows.
The destruction at Nimrud, located near the militant-held city of Mosul, came amid other attacks on antiquity carried out by the group now holding a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. The attacks have horrified archaeologists and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who last month called the destruction at Nimrud “a war crime.”
The seven-minute video, posted late Saturday, shows bearded militants using sledgehammers, jackhammers and saws to take down huge alabaster reliefs depicting Assyrian kings and deities. A bulldozer brings down walls, while militants fill barrels with explosives and later destroy three separate areas of the site in massive explosions.
“God has honored us in the Islamic State to remove all of these idols and statutes worshipped instead of Allah in the past days,” one militant says in the video. Another militant vows that “whenever we seize a piece of land, we will remove signs of idolatry and spread monotheism.”
The militants have been destroying ancient relics they say promote idolatry that violate their fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law, including the ancient Iraqi city of Hatra, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Ex-security guards convicted in Iraq shooting face long punishments
WASHINGTON — A yearslong legal fight over a deadly shooting of civilians in an Iraq war zone reaches its reckoning point with the sentencing this week of four former Blackwater security guards.
Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty and Paul Slough face mandatory, decadeslong sentences because of firearms convictions. A fourth defendant, Nicholas Slatten, faces life in prison after being found guilty of first-degree murder.
At the hearing Monday in U.S. District Court, defense lawyers intend to appeal for mercy by arguing their clients acted in self-defense during a chaotic firefight in Baghdad. They also plan to argue that sending the defendants to prison for decades would be an unfairly harsh outcome for men who have close family ties and proud military careers, and who were operating in stressful conditions in a war-torn country.
The men were charged in the deaths of 14 Iraqis at Nisoor Square, a crowded traffic circle in downtown Baghdad. The killings caused an international uproar and became a dark episode of contractor violence during the Iraq war. Defense lawyers argued that the contractors, who arrived there after a car bomb exploded, were targeted with gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police, and shot back in self-defense. Prosecutors contended that there was no incoming fire and that the shooting was unprovoked.
The defendants — who were in Iraq to protect American diplomats — were convicted in October after a trial that stretched months and featured testimony from Iraqi witnesses and from other Blackwater guards who cooperated with the government.
By wire sources.