It was a holy act, he said, to "exterminate this vile race from our [sic] lands".Dr Jabbour's letter 900 years later hopefully predicted that an apology from the modern-day Pope would "assuage and bring peace to the Islamic world as a whole".I was reminded of my unexpected Syrian visitor this week by something familiar in the rhetoric that the West is now using against its real or supposed enemies in the Middle East - and by the very real danger that this language represents for Europe. Could not Pope John Paul say something that was "close to an apology to the descendants of those who were the victims of the implementation of those decisions [for a Crusade]?" The 192 years of blood and fire that Europe was to unleash on the Middle East - in which both Muslims and Jews were massacred by the Crusaders, some of whom indulged in cannibalism - had been preceded by Pope Urban's chilling condemnation of Muslims as "an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God". The document he gave me was addressed to Pope John Paul II and it asked, with great courtesy and without resentment, if - on the 900th anniversary of Pope Urban II's appeal for a holy war against Muslims - His Holiness would like to apologise for the Crusades. "Most of the European Kingdoms and Empires participated in the Crusader wars against Arabs and Muslims," Dr Jabbour noted.

Dr Georges Jabbour turned out to be a Syrian who worked in the office of his prime minister but whose personal mission had nothing to do with his government. But EU officials and mediators such as Michael Steiner, the deputy international High Representative for Bosnia, doubt that the Bosnian Croats will budge unless prodded by Mr Tudjman.. A few months ago, the telephone rang in my Beirut apartment and a shy, academic voice asked if he could present me with a document. The Dayton agreement stipulated Herzeg-Bosnia's abolition, and Bosnian Muslims say the Croats' non-compliance threatens to destroy the Muslim-Croat federation, designed as a cornerstone of the peace deal.The European Union, which has administered Mostar since 1994, intends to pull out next Sunday unless the Bosnian Croats agree to join the city council. Even without the Croat boycott, the elections are likely to be flawed because of Bosnian Serb opposition to fundamental elements of the Dayton agreement.Mr Muratovic appealed to the outside world to freeze economic relations with Croatia as punishment for its refusal to make the Bosnian Croats dissolve their self-styled state of Herzeg-Bosnia. The Croats have boycotted what was supposed to be a newly united city council, thereby perpetuating Mostar's division into Croat and Muslim sectors.International mediators say that, if the Croat boycott is allowed to continue, it will discredit the all-Bosnian elections on 14 September. Bosnia's Muslim-led government demanded international action against Croatia yesterday to overcome a crisis in the divided city of Mostar that is threatening Bosnia's first post-war elections next month.

Bosnia's Prime Minister, Hasan Muratovic, told a meeting of Islamic countries in Geneva: "This is the last moment for the international community to direct its activity towards the Republic of Croatia to bring about the implementation of what it signed [in the Dayton peace agreement]." Croat political leaders in Mostar, supported by President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, have refused to accept the results of municipal elections in June that gave a narrow victory to their Muslim rivals. It was at this site where Mr Jewell gave one of his "shy hero" interviews. When the park was reopened to the public on Tuesday morning, he was interviewed live by Katie Couric of NBC. "You did the right thing," Ms Couric told him as thousands of people cheered."If my 15 minutes of fame was finding this package and saving some lives, that will be fine with me," he said in another interview.Robert Fisk's Essay, page 16. Many were shocked to realise that a single person may have been responsible for an incident which came close to halting the Games.