The team, a collection of Vatican guards and staff members, is one of only a handful of independent states that are not FIFA members, a group that includes the likes of Monaco and Palau.
Nor has there been any challenge recently to American authority from the clerics' makeshift collection of armed guards, said Major Vidal, who has been running Sadr City since the start of the occupation.
The base, an ungainly collection of dirt barriers, guard towers and plywood command posts, serves as a launching pad for securing villages and cutting off well-worn Taliban paths in the province's northeastern mountains.
In his eloquent out-of-print autobiography, "Shoemaker of Dreams," he shamelessly dishes on the sizes and style preferences of his famous clients, including Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren and Eva Braun, who "first came to my salon before the war, always accompanied by a collection of goose-stepping Nazi guards who stomped about the room heiling Hitler at every opportunity".
Think of Mr Norrell's jealously guarded collection of magical books in Susanna Clark's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which has been made into a TV drama; or who can forget the restricted section of the Hogwarts library?
In 1941 the recently born wolves had therefore to be euthanized, along with a collection of dangerous snakes, to guard against any possible danger to the public.
The collection of regulators entrusted with guarding the financial system known as the Financial Stability Oversight Council warned last month about the possible economic danger of growing student debt levels in its latest annual threat report.
Gilbert Norrell jealously guards his collection of magical books in Susanna Clark's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
A Concrete Slipcase Guards This Collection of Otherworldy Photos.
