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Security massive for papal visit to Turkey Pope Benedict comes calling on Christians living in Turkey

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ISTANBUL, Turkey — If Turkish security authorities needed a reminder of the challenge posed by Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey this week, Ibrahim Ak delivered it when he fired a pistol outside the Italian consulate in Istanbul and shouted that he wanted to strangle the pope with his bare hands.

"God willing, this will be a spark, a starter for Muslims … God willing, he will not come. If he comes, he will see what will happen to him," the 26-year-old Turk said as he was led away in handcuffs.

The Nov. 2 incident ended without injuries, and nothing like it has happened since, but authorities are braced for trouble and have mobilized an army of snipers, bomb disposal experts, riot police and navy commandos, to patrol the Bosporus Straits flowing through Istanbul.

Benedict's four-day visit to this overwhelmingly Muslim nation begins Tuesday under the shadow of his September speech in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

Like the rest of the Islamic world, many in this 99 percent Muslim nation are angry and want a fuller apology than Benedict's statement of regret for having caused offense.

Predicting big street protests, authorities plan to close several areas of Istanbul to traffic and are preparing lists of residents in those areas.

Felicity, a pro-Islamic opposition party, is calling for a massive protest in Istanbul today, before the pope arrives.

"If this trip would have occurred under normal conditions, then these lands, the center of tolerance and love, would show the necessary hospitality to him," it said. "But we don't want to see him on our soil because of the remarks he made about Islam's Prophet Muhammad on Sept. 12 and for not apologizing afterward."

Benedict will visit Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, the capital. Istanbul, when it was named Constantinople, was the capital of Byzantine-era Christianity, but Christians are a tiny minority in modern Turkey.