Israel Detains Denver Cult Members
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel (AP) -- Israeli police swooped down Sunday on two
homes in quiet, wooded Jerusalem suburbs, detaining 14 missing members of a
Denver-based cult and foiling what they said was a bloody plot the apocalyptic
group hoped would bring Christ's return.
In carefully synchronized raids, dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police
descended on two spacious homes a mile apart on Jerusalem's hilly outskirts.
The members of a group that calls itself Concerned Christians did not resist,
and police said they will seek their deportation.
The cult drama three days into 1999 raised the curtain on what Israeli
authorities fear could be months of turbulence leading up to the turn of the
millennium. Tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims are expected to visit the
Holy Land this year, but officials worry the millennium also will draw
deranged extremists seeking to live out apocalyptic fantasies.
Seventy-eight of the group's members vanished in October from the Denver area.
The detainees had been under police surveillance for a month.
Police said the group had planned to provoke a millennial shoot-out by opening
fire on them, believing that their own deaths in the subsequent bloodbath
would help bring about the Second Coming.
``They planned to carry out violent and extreme acts in the streets of
Jerusalem at the end of 1999 to start the process of bringing Jesus back to
life,'' said Brig. Gen. Elihu Ben-Onn, the national police spokesman.
A senior police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said cult members
believed that being killed by police would ``lead them to heaven.''
Some of the planned violent acts were to have been carried out in Jerusalem's
walled Old City, the source said, possibly including the hilltop known to Jews
as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary -- traditionally a
flashpoint for religious tensions.
Cult leader Monte Kim Miller, 44, was not among those detained; police said he
was not in Israel. The former Denver resident has described himself as a
figure in the biblical Book of Revelation, and has prophesied his own violent
death in Jerusalem this year.
Neighbors at both locations who were shown photographs of the missing cultists
said they thought they recognized some of them. Police would not release names
of any of the suspects detained, and Israeli law prohibits publication of
suspects' names until they appear in court.
Suspects may be held up to 48 hours before appearing in court, but police said
they intend to ask the Interior Ministry, which grants or revokes foreigners'
permission to remain in Israel, to deport them.
Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said the children and their mothers were not
in jail, but at an ``institutional office.'' Ben-Ruby wouldn't say where the
rest of the adults were, but said the men were ``in custody.'' The group, he
said, would not necessarily appear in court.
Ministry spokeswoman Tova Eilinson said once a formal request was received
from the police, the interior minister would consider it.
A U.S. Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consular
official would visit the suspects in custody as soon as possible.
Underscoring the matter's sensitivity, the raids -- which capped a month of
police surveillance -- were personally overseen by Jerusalem police commander
Yair Yitzhaki. The Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, also was
heavily involved.
The two homes, in the well-off western Jerusalem suburbs of Mevasseret Zion
and Moza, were similar: both large, built of yellow Jerusalem stone and
surrounded by flowering plants.
Neighbors described the tenants of both houses as polite and friendly, but
noted unusual behavior that included the fact that the adults did not appear
to have jobs and the children did not go to school.
``In retrospect, there were some things that seemed weird,'' said Rami
Chanono, 30, whose parents live next door to the Mevasseret Zion home.
The vanished members of the Concerned Christians represent a cross-section:
white and black, married and single, white-collar professionals and unemployed
laborers. They range in age from infancy to 68.
Guesses as to the whereabouts of Miller and other followers include Mexico's
Yucatan Peninsula, Toronto or Libya. The exact size of the cult is not known,
but it is not thought to be much larger than the 78 people who already have
disappeared.
Members of cultists' families have testified as to their apocalyptic beliefs.
``My mother told me in August '96 that we have only 40 months left on Earth,''
said an affidavit filed in a Boulder, Colo. district court in 1997 by 16-year-
old Nicolette Weaver, whose mother was a cult member. ``My mother told me that
if Kim Miller told her to kill me, she would.''
Despite worries about potential violence associated with the millennium,
Israeli officials emphasize that they want to welcome visitors and protect
religious freedom. But Yitzhaki, the police chief, said authorities would
``act firmly against the attempts of extreme groups.''
=====
"Israeli security authorities have set up a task force to deal with
possible violence from Christian cults and Jewish messianic groups as the
millennium approaches."
Israel says U.S. cultists planned violence
JERUSALEM, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Israeli police arrested eight members of a U.S.
Christian cult on Sunday, saying they planned to carry out violence ahead of
the millennium to hasten the second coming of Jesus.
It was the first such arrest since Israeli security authorities set up a task
force last year to deal with possible violence by cults and messianic groups
as the turn of the century approaches.
``They intended to carry out extreme acts of violence in the streets of
Jerusalem towards the end of 1999 with the aim of beginning a process that
would bring about the second coming of Jesus,'' said a police spokesman.
The spokesman identified the eight as members of the Denver-based Concerned
Christians who abandoned their jobs and homes in Colorado several months ago
and went missing.
The group's leader Monte Kim Miller, who has foretold his own death on the
streets of Jerusalem sometime during 1999, was not in Israel, the police
spokesman said.
The cult members were arrested in their rented apartments in two Jerusalem
suburbs where they lived with six children.
``Police...arrested eight American tourists in their apartments a short while
ago, all members of the apocalyptic cult named Concerned Christians,'' the
spokesman said,
It was not immediately clear if other members of the cult were living in
Israel.
The Shin Bet security service was involved in tracing the cult members who
would probably be deported back to the United States, the spokesman said.
A resident of Mevaseret just outside Jerusalem said members of the group had
lived near her for several months.
``They were very quiet, very nice neighbours,'' she told Army Radio.
A Colorado-based cult monitoring group said in October that relatives had been
searching for as many as 60 missing members of the Concerned Christians.
=====
Japan security review warns of doomsday cult
By Jon Herskovitz
TOKYO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Japan must be on guard for a revived doomsday Aum
Shinri Kyo cult and possible extremist Moslem attacks on U.S. military sites
in Japan, according to a government security report obtained on Sunday.
The Public Security Investigation Agency said in its annual security review
that Aum Shinri Kyo, the cult behind the 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attack
that killed 12 people and made 6,000 ill, was working to boost its membership
and coffers.
``Aum is attempting to re-enlist former members and step up recruiting of new
members nationwide. It is also initiating advertising campaigns and acquiring
necessary capital,'' the report said.
The cult also has Internet pages that get as many as 1,000 hits a day,
security officials said earlier this year.
They said the most pressing concern about Aum was the group's acquisition of
real estate.
``This is a commune-based cult, and once they're in their own space they
aren't ruled by Japanese laws, but (cult leader Shoko) Asahara's laws. And
they see no reason to obey Japanese laws,'' one official said.
Asahara is on trial for multiple murders linked to activities of the cult
which believed there would be a doomsday end to the world at the end of the
century which only sect members would survive.
Since February, Aum has acquired at least five substantial properties, most of
them either in or within reach of Tokyo.
Public Security Agency officials said they believed the cult had 33 facilities
and as many as 100 dormitories throughout the country, with active membership
somewhere around 2,000.
At the height of its popularity before the subway attack, the cult had a hard
core membership of about 10,000.
In another security warning, the report said attacks on U.S.-facilities in the
non-Islamic world could make U.S. military bases in Japan possible targets of
a terrorist attack.
``Japan, which is host to many U.S. military installations and businesses,
needs to be on guard for radical Islamic extremists,'' the report said.
There are about 47,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan.
The report was called the ``Review and Prognosis of the Domestic and
International Situation.'' It was an assessment of radical and terrorist
groups in Japan and abroad and their possible impact on domestic security.
