Pope Francis said on Wednesday that a string of recent attacks, including the murder of a priest in France, was proof that the “world is at war”.
However, speaking to reporters aboard a plane taking him to Poland, the pope said he was not talking about a war of religion, but rather one of domination of peoples and economic interests.
“The word that is being repeated often is insecurity, but the real word is war,” he said in brief comments to reporters while flying to southern Poland for a five-day visit.
“Let’s recognise it. The world is in a state of war in bits and pieces,” he said, adding that the attacks could be seen as another world war, specifically mentioning the first and second world wars.
“Now there is this one (war). It is perhaps not organic but it is organised and it is war,” he said. “We should not be afraid to speak this truth. The world is at war because it has lost peace.”
About 15 minutes later, after greeting journalists individually, Francis took the microphone again and said he wanted “to clarify” that he was not referring to a war of religion.
“Not a war of religion. There is a war of interests. There is a war for money. There is a war for natural resources. There is a war for domination of peoples. This is the war,” he said.
“All religions want peace. Others want war. Do you understand?” he said.
He called Jacques Hamel, the priest forced to his knees by Islamist militants on Tuesday who then slit his throat, “a saintly priest”, but said he was just one of many innocent victims.
He thanked the many people around the world who have sent their condolences over the killing of Father Hamel, particularly French president Francois Hollande, who spoke to the pope on Tuesday.
In New York, FBI director James Comey warned that hundreds of terrorists would fan out to infiltrate western Europe and the US to carry out attacks on a wider scale as Islamic State is defeated in Syria.
“At some point there’s going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before,” Mr Comey said Wednesday
“We saw the future of this threat in Brussels and Paris,” said the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, adding that future attacks will be on “an order of magnitude greater”.
His comments reflect a consensus among US intelligence officials that the group inevitably will strike out abroad as it continues to lose ground militarily under attack from a US-led coalition.
Mr Comey said “a lot of terrorists fled out of Afghanistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is 10 times that or more.”
In his remarks at a conference on cybersecurity, he also cited the difficulty of heading off what are often called “lone-wolf” attackers acting on the group’s calls for violence. It is “increasingly hard” for counterterrorism officials to find and stop individuals inspired or directed by Islamic State who use a knife or a vehicle to kill people, he said.
– Reuters, Bloomberg