Italy [Archive] - It's Happening Forums

Petronas

05-26-2005, 01:27 AM

Trial over Italian Islam 'insult'
Tuesday, 24 May, 2005, 18:21 GMT 19:21 UK

Controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is to face trial for allegedly insulting the Muslim faith in her latest book, a court in Italy says. Ms Fallaci is being sued by the head of the Muslim Union of Italy, who says The Force of Reason is defamatory.

The journalist caused an uproar with The Rage and the Pride, published two weeks after the 11 September attacks. In it, she said Western culture was superior to Islam and Muslim immigrants in the West had "multiplied like rats".

Her lawyers have defended her right to express controversial opinions. "At the heart of her thinking is the following reasoning: the fight against Islamic terrorism is made more difficult by intellectual terrorism cloaked in anti-racism," Gilles Goldhagen, said in 2002, when a French judge was hearing a case to ban The Rage and the Pride.

The Force of Reason is said to have gone to print about 24 hours after the 11 March 2004 train bombings in Spain. In it, Ms Fallaci argues that Europe is turning into "an Islamic province, an Islamic colony" and that "to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason".

Italian preliminary investigative judge Armando Grasso ordered the formulation of charges against the author, saying the book had expressions which were "unequivocally offensive to Islam". Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, sued the writer on 8 April 2004. He says Ms Fallaci has been advocating and spreading hate against Islam and Muslims, sometimes by allegedly distorting real historical facts and inventing others. The case is being tried in the northern town of Bergamo, where the book was published. The prosecution has 10 days to come up with a charge.

Ms Fallaci, who lives in New York, was a Resistance fighter in World War II and a former war correspondent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4576663.stm

An excellent book. I highly recommend this controversial book to anyone interested in the process of conversion of Europe into "Eurabia". This prosecution of an author for the expression her opinions alone only proves her point. Under Islamic law there will be no freedom of expression.

NYer

07-25-2005, 05:04 PM

For what it's worth, a heads up from Debka ...

DEBKAfile: Al Qaeda now threatens Rome. Berlusconi personally addressed

July 25, 2005, 10:32 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades who claimed the two London bombing attacks published a fresh warning Monday, July 25: “After London, it is Rome’s turn.” The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is warned that by failing to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq, he would by his own hand “turn Rome into a graveyard.”

More...
www.debka.com

Petronas

09-16-2005, 12:40 AM

Italy (Country threat level - 3): A small bomb exploded at a military barracks located approximately 45 mi/70 km south of Rome at 1600 local time (1400 UTC) on 14 September 2005, killing a member of the Carabinieri paramilitary police force and injuring one other person. Initial reports indicated that the explosion -- reportedly caused by a mail bomb -- occurred in the military camp's communications room. Later reports suggested that the incident occurred in a different area of the military camp, and the bomb may have been dropped over a wall. No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the incident, and an investigation is continuing.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 9/15/2005

Casey

11-04-2005, 09:37 AM

ITALY: INTERIOR MINISTER CONFIRMS BOMB THREAT TO BERLUSCONI

Rome, 4 Nov. (AKI) - Italian interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu has confirmed prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was the subject of a suicide bomb plot, due to be executed during a football match at Milan's San Siro stadium. "What Berlusconi said was true, but I can not say any more," said Pisanu, adding however that Italians can continue going to football matches without fear. Berlusconi told the conservative daily Libero: "I am the subject of a direct threat. A suicide bomber at the [football] stadium against me."

The Milan prosecutors office said it had had no indications of a similar terrorist threat, but noted that not all intelligence reports are referred to the judiciary.

Several Italian media outlets have reported that the alleged threat came in a note from foreign intelligence agencies ,which mentioned a potential attack against the prime minsiter, by more than one suicide bomber, probably in Milan during an international match against a German team.

The only upcoming match on the calendar is the Champions League encounter between Berlusconi's team AC Milan and Schalke scheduled for December 6 at San Siro stadium.

(Fmk/Aki)

Nov-04-05 13:31
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.225861124&par=0

Petronas

11-16-2005, 08:49 PM

Italy 'arrests terror suspects'
17nov05

ITALIAN police had arrested three suspected Algerian Islamic extremists on suspicion of aiding and abetting international terrorism, Ansa news agency reported today. Ansa said police viewed the suspects as "potentially operative". It said they were seized early yesterday in the southern port city of Naples and northern city of Brescia. There was no immediate confirmation of the report.

Ansa said the Algerians had been in contact with a cell from Algeria's Salafist movement, which is thought to have links to al-Qaeda. Ansa did not say where they were being held. Italy, a US ally with troops in Iraq, has received numerous Internet threats purported to be from Islamic militants, who have vowed to strike Italian interests.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17275290%255E1702,00.html

Petronas

11-19-2005, 12:47 PM

ITALY: ALGERIAN SUSPECTS ALLEGEDLY PLANNED TO KILL 10,000
18-Nov-05 12:18
Brescia and Naples

The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack - "on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives" - that aimed to kill "at least 10,000 people", as well as an attack on "Italian citizens and interests" in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda's deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. In their tapped phone conversations, Yamine Bouhrama, Mohamed Larbi and Khaled Serai described the 7 July London subway and bus bombings that killed over 50 and injured 700, and the 23 July Sharm El-Sheikh terror attacks that killed 90 people and injured over 150 as "highdays and holidays", according to police. The three also spoke of having "documents ready", "war on the infidel", and "a bigger party" than the London attacks. They are suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda-linked Algerian militant formation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). Investigators allege they were not just in Italy to provide logistical support such as false passports and residency permits, but were actually "potential operatives" who were "ready to attack".

Serai and Larbi are being detained in Brescia, where they were living when arrested, while Bouhrama is being held in Naples, where he was living at the time of his arrest. three were detained on suspicion of association with the aim of international terrorism, a charge introduced in Italy following the September 11, 2001 attacks in America. Italy's interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu on Friday played down the case, saying "too much fuss" was being made about it. However, he said that Italy remains on "high alert" over possible terrorist attacks. Naples magistrates on Friday approved Bouhrama's arrest warrant for suspected intent to carry out international terrorism, as well as minor offences. Brescia judge Roberto Spanò ruled Sarei and Larbi were to remain in jail on minor charges of receiving stolen goods, assisting illegal immigration and falsifying documents. He announced he would be referring their cases to magistrates in Naples.

The men's arrest in Brescia and Naples came as they were allegedly about to flee Italy and followed a complex three-year surveillance operation of a GSPC cell by the Italian intelligence service SISMI. The three were flush with cash, and moved around constantly between the northern cities of Brescia and Vicenza, the Italian capital, Rome, and the southern city of Naples, police allege. They were also in contact with other terror cells in the northern cities of Venice, Cesena and Milan, as well as the central Italian city of Florence, according to the investigators. They say they also have evidence of the three men being in contact with extremist groups in Norway, France and Britain. Bourhama is thought to have undergone training at terrorist camps in Chechnya and Georgia and may be capable of making explosive belts used by suicide bombers. He allegedly had in his possession a bottle of "perfume" containing toxic substances, police said.

While under surveillance, Serai is believed to have been followed to Norway, where Mullah Krekar, an Iraqi Kurd who heads the radical Islamic militia group Ansar al-Islam, has lived since requesting political asylum in 1991, despite being wanted around the world. The US has accused Ansar al-Islam of offering sanctuary to al-Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan, including the now leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The GSPC is the main armed Islamic organisation in Algeria and its aims are reported to include replacing the Algerian government with an Islamic state and attacking Western interests in the region. The GSPC has been on America's list of "terrorist groups" since 2002 and is said to have extensive contacts in Europe, the US and the Middle East, as well as being linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.230427816&par=0

Petronas

11-19-2005, 12:52 PM

From Tapes, a Chilling Voice of Islamic Radicalism in Europe
Published: November 18, 2005

MILAN - Playing an Internet video one evening last year, an Egyptian radical living in Milan reveled as the head of an American, Nicholas Berg, was sawed off by his Iraqi captors. Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed's computer had a picture of a briefcase bomb that could be set off by a cellphone.

"Go to hell, enemy of God!" shouted the man, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, as Mr. Berg's screams were broadcast. "Kill him! Kill him! Yes, like that! Cut his throat properly. Cut his head off! If I had been there, I would have burned him to make him already feel what hell was like. Cut off his head! God is great! God is great!"

Yahia Ragheh, the Egyptian would-be suicide bomber sitting by Mr. Ahmed's side, clearly felt uncomfortable. "Isn't it a sin?" he asked. "Who said that?" Mr. Ahmed shot back. "It is never a sin!" He added: "We hope that even their parents will come to the same end. Dogs, all of them, all of them. You simply need to be convinced when you make the decision."...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/international/europe/18milan.html

Petronas

12-23-2005, 03:43 PM

Italy arrests suspected extremists
Friday, December 23, 2005; Posted: 7:19 a.m. EST (12:19 GMT)

ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Italian police arrested three Algerians on Friday who are suspected of being members of an extremist group with links to al Qaeda, a police spokesman said. The men are being held in the southern port city of Naples on suspicion of breaching international terrorism laws and carrying false documents, the spokesman said.

He added that magistrates believed they were part of a cell set up by the Algerian Salafist movement, which has links with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group. Friday's arrests followed the detention last month of three other Algerians suspected of contact with the Salafist movement. All three were originally held on terrorism charges, but only one of the three is still being investigated for terrorism links.

Italy, a U.S. ally with troops in Iraq, has received numerous Internet threats purported to be from Islamic militants, who have vowed to strike Italian interests.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/12/23/italy.arrests.reut/index.html

Petronas

01-31-2006, 03:27 PM

Italy on alert for terror at winter games
Fri Jan 27, 1:08 PM ET

ROME (Reuters) - Italy is prepared for any kind of terrorist attack linked to the Winter Olympics and is ready to re-introduce border controls if necessary ahead of the games that begin in two weeks, top security officials said on Friday. The security and Interior Ministry officials briefing reporters also said that security agents coming in with teams for the February 10-26 games in the Turin area of northern Italy would not be allowed to carry their own weapons. They said Italy was ready for any eventuality that might disrupt the games and had set up a special squad to react to nuclear, biological, chemical or dirty-bomb threats.

"At this time we are not aware of any terrorist threat," one top security official said. "But experience teaches us that the overlapping of several big, important events, such as the elections (and the Olympics) can be a temptation, a time of danger, and this is why our level of attention is at a very high level," he said.

The campaign for Italy's national elections in April will start officially on February 11, one day after the games start. Another factor adding to security concerns is the fact that Italy, an ally of the United States in the Iraq war, has repeatedly been mentioned as a potential target for a militant Islamist attack. Bombs set by militants linked to al Qaeda killed 191 people in 2004 before Spain withdrew from Iraq and 52 people were killed by suicide bomb blasts on the London transport system last July.

"There is no doubt that more attention will be given to some teams than others," one official said. But he said security for the teams would be handled by Italian forces liaising with unarmed security experts from other countries. "Security will be guaranteed by Italian police authorities and the entry to Italy of other armed (security) persons from other countries will not be allowed," one security official said.

Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes they had taken hostage during the 1972 Games in Munich. One person died and dozens were injured by a bomb at the Atlanta Games in 1996. The official said the only exception would be if "they are part of the entourage of visiting dignitaries such as heads of government and heads of state."

The officials were asked if Italy would consider suspending the Schengen agreement, under which 15 European countries scrapped border controls. "Italian authorities have repeatedly evaluated the possibility of re-introducing border controls but at this time no decision has been taken. Right now, we don't think it is necessary but nonetheless it has not been excluded," one security official said.

Under Schengen, people can travel without having to show their passports other than for security controls when boarding aircraft. More than 9,000 extra police will be on hand to protect the games, including more than 300 police skiers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060127/sp_nm/olympics_security_dc_1

NYer

01-31-2006, 03:31 PM

So which is the more tempting terror target - Winter Olympics or Super Bowl?

Petronas

04-03-2006, 12:56 PM

Italy expels more alleged Islamic terrorists
Mar 26, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Rome - Italy has expelled 20 North Africans suspected of planning terror attacks on its territory, state television Rai reported Sunday. The suspects - from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco - were apprehended and sent back to their country of origin after a major country-wide anti-terrorism police swoop. Officials carried out 80 searches and checked nearly 300 people in 46 provinces as part of 'extraordinary operations aimed at monitoring suspect sources of Islamic extremism,' Italy's Interior Ministry said in a statement. Police also arrested four people and seized a number of documents.

The expulsions are part of the Italian government's new policy of deporting suspect terrorists even before enough evidence is gathered to produce an indictment. Last week, Italy expelled seven alleged Islamic terrorists who were said to be planning pre-election bomb attacks in Milan and Bologna.

According to reports, the seven planned to blow up an underground railway line in Milan and Bologna's Basilica of San Petronio, a Catholic church reviled by Muslim extremists because of its 15th century fresco depicting the Prophet Mohammed in hell being tormented by devils. The attack was set to take place just days before Italians go to the polls in an April 9-10 general election.

The latest expulsions came as the US State Department issued a statement warning Americans to take precautions when travelling to Italy in the coming weeks, citing pre-election street protests and terrorism as possible sources of danger. The United States considers Italy to be under threat by al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists because of its decision to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/printer_1150163.php

Petronas

04-08-2006, 01:17 AM

ITALY: MUSLIMS TOLD TO VOTE COMMUNIST
Apr-05-06 10:30

The secretary general of Italy's largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic communities in Italy (UCOII), has called on Italian Muslims to vote for the Party of Italian Communists at the general election. Hamza Piccardo sent an email late Tuesday to Muslim centres saying that the party's leader Oliviero Diliberto had been sensitive to the needs of Muslim inmates when he was justice minister in the late 1990s and this constituted a sound reason to vote for him on 9-10 April. This was the first time that a leading member of Italy's Muslim community publicly supported a party on the eve of an election.

In the email, Piccardo also said that, "another five years with a cabinet of [prime minister Silvio] Berlusconi and the Northern League Party is for Muslims and for foreigners in Italy a sad perspective of misunderstanding and segregation." The Northern League is an anti-immigration party in the government coalition.

The UCOII leader explained that he met Diliberto along with the president of UCOII Mohamed Nour Dachan when he was justice minister - from October 1998 until December 1999 in the progressive government of Massimo D'Alema. "We spoke at length about the community's problems and needs, agreeing that the government needed to take more action on its behalf. Diliberto was extremely interested and helpful. In particular, we spoke to him about the problem of celebrating Ramadan in prisons, asking the ministry to make sure that dinner was served when [Muslim inmates] could interrupt their fast."

The leader of UCOII said that Diliberto's willingness to accommodate the needs of the Muslim community was a good reason to vote for his party - even placing at the end of his email the logos of the Party of Italian Communists and its allies at the Senate, the Greens, both members of the center-left coalition. Piccardo concluded that in December 1999 the minister sent him a letter explaining that, as agreed in their previous conversation, he had "given instructions so that Muslims in Italian prisons could conveniently abide by their Ramadan obligations. Ever since, that practice has been implemented in Italian prisons."

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.283904893&par=0#

Petronas

04-17-2006, 11:03 AM

Muslims outraged by new cartoon of Prophet in Hell
17/04/2006

An Italian magazine has infuriated Muslims by publishing a cartoon showing the Prophet Mohammed cut in half and burning in Hell. The drawing appears in Studi Cattolici, a monthly magazine with links to the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic group, Opus Dei. It shows the poets Virgil and Dante on the edge of a circle of flame looking down on Mohammed.

"Isn't that man there, split in two from head to navel, Mohammed?" Dante asks Virgil. "Yes and he is cut in two because he has divided society," Virgil replies. "While that woman there, with the burning coals, represents the politics of Italy towards Islam."

Cesare Cavalleri, the editor of the magazine, said last night that he had not meant to cause offence. "If, contrary to my intentions and those of the author, anyone felt offended in his religious feelings, I freely ask him in a Christian manner for forgiveness."

That was a marked change of tone from an earlier statement, when he said: "We must not fear freedom of opinion." If the cartoon provoked an attack, it would only confirm "the idiotic positions" of Muslim extremists. "This is not a cartoon against Mohammed. It is a cartoon which addresses the loss of the West's identity. Why all the fuss over a cartoon which only represents that which has already been written centuries ago by Dante Alighieri?"

Dante placed Mohammed in Hell in Canto 28 of The Divine Comedy. His work inspired a painting by William Blake, depicting Mohammed with his entrails hanging out, and a fresco in Bologna Cathedral showing him being tortured by a devil.

The new drawing threatens to reignite the controversy over a series of cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last September and reproduced in France in February. A spokesman for the Union of Italian Muslim Communities called it "odious and racist". He said: "The rage was just calmed and here, with an absurd and criminal logic, they go and stir things up."

Opus Dei was quick to distance itself from the magazine. "Studi Catollici is not among our official publications," a spokesman said. The new controversy has emerged just as Danish and Muslim youths are taking part in a summit aimed at reconciling the two sides. At the time of the Danish row, Roberto Calderoli, the Italian reforms minister, wore a T-shirt showing one of the Danish cartoons during a television interview. He was forced to resign.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/17/wcart17.xml

Petronas

04-19-2006, 03:43 PM

The secretary general of Italy's largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic communities in Italy (UCOII), has called on Italian Muslims to vote for the Party of Italian Communists at the general election.There are an estimated 1 million Muslims in Italy.

ITALY ELECTIONS: TOP APPEALS COURT OFFICIALLY CONFIRMS PRODI'S VICTORY

Rome, 19 April (AKI) - Italy's highest appeals court, the Cassazione, officially confirmed Wednesday the victory of the centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi in Italy's general elections by a narrow 24,755 vote margin. ...

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.288562229&par=0

Petronas

05-30-2006, 01:58 AM

And now, the payoff...

ITALY: 1-MILLION IMMIGRANTS TO BECOME CITIZENS UNDER PROPOSED REFORM
May-29-06 11:45

The Italian cabinet will discuss on Thursday a key draft law that will overhaul the country's restrictive citizenship rules. Under the proposed legislation, immigrants applying for citizenship would have to wait six rather than approximately 15 years before becoming Italian and their children born on Italian soil would automatically be citizens. Today, the offspring of immigrants have to wait until they turn 18 before being allowed to apply. The measure would concern approximately one million immigrants.

Italy has the strictest citizenship legislation in Europe. In Germany, immigrants need about eight years before they can become citizens, three more years than in France and Britain. Indeed rules are so strict that the number of new citizens has decreased despite a hike in immigration. According to the most recent interior ministry data available, new citizens in 2002 were around 500 compared to the 1,800 in 1999 while immigration more than doubled over the same period.

Mario Marazziti, a member of the Catholic charity group Sant'Egidio which first proposed the bill, told Turin-daily La Stampa that the law is in Italy's interest as well as in the interest of immigrants. "There are today 130,000 elderly compared to 100,000 minors in the country and by 2050 there will be twice as many deaths than births," under Italy's current demographic trend, he said. The population's growth "depends on foreigners."

Marazziti also noted that out of Italy's 2.5 million legal immigrants "two million were granted residence papers thanks to amnesties for illegal foreigners." Meanwhile, he said, though Italy's standing immigration law provides for the cabinet to establish a yearly quota of new residence permits according to labour market needs, "entrepreneurs are demanding threefold quotas compared to the ones issued so far and legal immigrants are paying 1.7 billion euros in taxes."

Italy's immigration law was passed by the previous conservative cabinet to crack down on illegal immigration. The new centre-left government of Romano Prodi, which was sworn in earlier this month, has said it will ease immigration rules and give an additional 480,000 residence permits to immigrants this year. This year's quota provided for only 170,000 to be granted this request.

The new citizenship rules would concern 550,000 children born in Italy or whose parents become citizens and 480,000 foreigners who have lived in Italy for the past ten years - the minimum period required under the current legislation to apply for citizenship. Italy currently spends more in expatriation than in integration measures. Authorities spend approximately 180 million euros a year to send illegal immigrants back home and only 40 million on integration policies.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.303781307&par=0

Vancouver

07-21-2006, 12:51 PM

Five Algerians rounded up, said to be involved in document forgery for jihadis.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/07/21/italy.arrest/index.html

Petronas

08-04-2006, 11:51 PM

ITALY: CABINET APPROVES NEW CITIZENSHIP LAW
Aug-04-06 12:50

The cabinet approved on Friday a draft law significantly easing Italy's citizenship laws. Under the reform, immigrants residing in the country for at least five years can apply for citizenship - halving the wait from today's ten years. The children of immigrants who are born in Italy can automatically become citizens while under current legislation they can only apply when they turn 18. According to estimates by Catholic charity Caritas, which regularly monitors the presence of immigrants in Italy with the interior ministry, 900,000 foreigners could become citizens under the new law out of Italy's 2.5 million immigrants. The number of applicants could rise to 1.5 million by 2008, Caritas also said.

Italy has today the strictest citizenship legislation in Europe. It takes on average 15 years for an immigrants to become Italian. In Germany, immigrants need about eight years before they can become citizens, three more years than in France and Britain. Indeed rules are so strict that the number of new Italian citizens has decreased despite a hike in immigration. According to the most recent interior ministry data available, new citizens in 2002 were around 500 compared to the 1,800 in 1999 while immigration more than doubled over the same period.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.327600273&par=0

Petronas

08-11-2006, 11:39 PM

1353: Police officials in Italy arrested 40 people in Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence and Naples. The suspects were reportedly arrested for residency permit violations and for property crimes; however, they may be connected to the terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.

http://monitor.airsecurity.com/

NYer

08-17-2006, 08:34 AM

Murder of Young Paki Woman Shocks Italy (http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/17/top10.htm)
Honor Killing Alert ... brought to you by another True Believer.

The stabbed body of 21-year-old Hina Saleem, whose boyfriend — a 33-year-old divorced and re-married Italian — raised the alarm to police about her disappearance, was discovered on Saturday buried in the garden of the family home at Sarezzo, near the north-eastern city of Brescia.

The killing was “a kind of punishment inflicted by her father because she did not respect the rules of their ethnicity and culture,” Brescia prosecutor Giancarlo Tarquini said at a news conference.

The father and brother-in-law of the young woman were charged with murder and concealing the body, while a third male family member was still being hunted by police on Wednesday.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the murder was premeditated, a hypothesis supported by the fact that the women and children of the family appeared to have been removed from the house before the murder.

The father told police that he killed his daughter because he did not want her to “become like the others.”

He has remained silent since then and his lawyer has described him as an extremely pious man “who respected the Quran to the letter”.

Petronas

08-23-2006, 12:35 AM

Italy reports seizing US-bound arms shipment
Sunday, August 20, 2006

Italian authorities seized a container full of weapons, including Kalashnikov assault rifles and plastic explosives bound for the United States from Saudi Arabia in May, press reports said yesterday. Il Mattino newspaper said that the "arsenal" was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unnamed ex-Soviet republic, which was travelling from Saudi Arabia to the US east coast.

It was boarded by customs officials in the port of Gioia Tauro in the southern Calabria region. They discovered more than 70 AK-47 assault rifles, plastics used in explosives and launch pads for rockets, the daily said. Without quoting its sources, the Ansa news agency later reported that "the shipment was permitted, but certain papers were missing from the accompanying documents". It said that the container could continue its journey as soon as the identification documents had been validated. An inquiry is under way with the participation of US secret services, Il Mattino said.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20060819T200000-0500_111536_OBS_ITALY_REPORTS_SEIZING_US_BOUND_ARM S_SHIPMENT_.asp

Petronas

09-15-2006, 08:34 PM

Journalist Fallaci dies
Florence, September 15

Controversial crusading journalist Oriana Fallaci died Thursday night in her native Florence after a long battle with lung cancer. She was 77 .

Fallaci, a radical campaigner, war correspondent and scourge of the powerful who returned to her Catholic roots in her final years, sparked a storm with anti-Islam books after the September 11, 2001 attacks on America .

The Rage and the Pride (2002) shocked many of her old admirers but won her new ones as she slammed Islam as "oppressive" and Arab immigrants in Europe as "bigoted" .

Defying political correctness, she followed up in similar vein two years later in The Force of Reason, saying that Europe risked becoming 'Eurabia' and had "sold itself like a whore to sultans" .

The first book attacked Pope John Paul II for apologising for the Crusades. She changed tack in the second one and praised the Church for defending Europe's Christian roots against a "relativist" and multicultural drift. A year ago, the chainsmoking feminist once at the forefront of Italy's abortion and divorce campaigns was received by Pope Benedict XVI. By then, she described herself as "a Christian atheist". A few months after Fallaci's second polemic, the future pope - at the time the Church's watchdog on dogma - came out with a book voicing concern that Europe was ashamed of its past and losing its identity .

Fallaci first showed her combative spirit in joining the anti-fascist Resistance at the age of 17. She was later a correspondent in Vietnam, the Indo-Pakistani and Middle East conflicts, and South American uprisings. She was wounded in 1968 at a protest against the Olympic Games in Mexico City .

Working for Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Sera and the newsweekly l'Europeo, Fallaci won renown with a series of prickly interviews with some of the world's most powerful figures including Henry Kissinger, Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, General Giap, Colonel Gheddafi, Indira Ghandi, Deng Xiaoping and Ayatollah Khomeini - defiantly whipping off the headscarf the Iranians forced her to wear. She harangued Kissinger into calling the Vietnam War "useless" - an admission that later prompted him to call the interview "the single most disastrous conversation I ever had with a member of the press" .

She also worked for leading publications across Europe and the United States including the The Washington Post, the New York Times, Life, the New Republic, Le Nouvelle Observateur and Stern. Fallaci wrote best-selling works of fiction and semi-fiction including Letter To An Unborn Child (1975), which topped the charts in Italy for years, A Man (1979), the story of the love of her life, tragic Greek leftist Alekos Panagulis, and Inshallah (1990) - her last publication before her anti-Islam tirade 12 years later.

Her works sold millions of copies in some 30 countries including China, Japan, Thailand and across the Arab world, but she always felt an outsider in Italian literary circles. She was never dismayed by critics who disliked her flamboyant style, saying at a prize-giving ceremony in France: "Ordinary Italians like me, but I'm less liked by those who think they can dictate what people like" .

Spurning the Italian intellectual elite, Fallaci lived most of her later years on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She returned to Florence recently to fight the disease that was killing her. In her last book, Interview With Myself (2004), she wrote about her struggle with cancer, which she called 'the Alien'. "I still have some anti-bodies in my brain," she wrote, but I don't have long to live. I still have many things to say, however".

Among the tributes to her Friday, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano called her "a world-famous journalist" and "an impassioned protagonist of animated cultural battles". The head of the Italian Journalists' Union called her a "great, courageous and scrupulous journalist but also an intellectual whose most recent views were unacceptable and in many respects dangerous" .

http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-09-15_1152789.html

Petronas

09-17-2006, 07:53 PM

Rome tightens pope's security after fury over Islam remarks
09:11 17/09/2006

The Vatican has increased the security provisions for the Pope, Army Radio reported Sunday, a day after an Iraqi insurgent group threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack over the pope's remarks on Islam. Muslims around the world have reacted furiously to the comments Tuesday by Benedict XVI, in which he quoted from an obscure Medieval text referred to some of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad as "evil and inhuman."

The statement, posted online Saturday in the group's name, does not state the seat of the Holy See directly, but is addressed to "you dog of Rome" and threatens to "shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home." "We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life," said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a Web site frequently used by militant groups. The message, the authenticity of which could not be independently verified, also contained links to video recordings of what the group claimed were rocket attacks on U.S. bases. The Mujahedeen Army's statement vowed, "our minds will not rest until we shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home." ...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763199.html

Petronas

10-25-2006, 03:14 PM

TERRORISM: NATO CONDUCTS EMERGENCY RESPONSE TRAINING IN ITALY
Oct-25-06 16:35

Civilian emergency teams from six North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries - Italy, Russia, Austria, Croatia, Hungary and Romania - are taking part in the two-day Lazio 2006 exercise in Italy, centered on handling the aftermath of a simulated terrorist attack and training in the practical, legal, medical and psychological aspects of such an attack. "The exercise has been going very well," Evert Sommer from NATO's civilian emergency planning department told Adnkronos International (AKI).

In the first part of the exercise over 250 firefighting and civil defence personnel on Tuesday responded to a simulated dirty bomb attack in the town of Montelibretti, 40 kilometres north of the capital, Rome. A dirty bomb or Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD), is a weapon which combines radioactive material with conventional explosives and is designed to disperse radioactive material over a large area.

In the second, more theoretical part of the exercise, taking place on Wednesday in Rome, 150 experts from the 25 NATO member countries and Russia, as well as partner countries, were training the civilian emergency teams in ways to streamline operations during an international response to a major terror attack, and the medical and psychological aspects of assisting civilians.

"We have found language can be a problem but it can be overcome with radio and non-verbal communication systems," said Sommer. "There are also legal aspects to the presence of foreign emergency personnel in a country," he added, explaining that teams were receiving training on this area of international operations.

The Lazio 2006 civilian emergency response exercises is the third in a series conducted under the NATO-Russia Council, set up three years ago to assess common risks and areas for cooperation, including civilian emergency planning, response to terror attacks, and defence reform, Sommer explained.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.353306708&par=0

Petronas

10-27-2006, 02:44 PM

Italy Seeks Prison for Terror Suspect
October 27, 2006 11:43 AM EDT

A prosecutor on Thursday demanded conviction and a 14-year sentence for an Egyptian suspected of playing a role in the Madrid train bombings, arguing that he had ties to a terror cell whose reach extended throughout Europe and even to Iraq. The prosecutor, Maurizio Romanelli, demanded a seven-year sentence for the man's alleged disciple and contended the younger man was preparing to become a suicide bomber.

Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, 34, and Yahia Ragei, 22, are charged with subversive association aimed at international terrorism, a charge that was introduced after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. "The people involved at the highest level in the Madrid attacks and in the subsequent collective suicide ... were all strongly tied to Rabei," Romanelli said. Ahmed belonged to "a band of murderers, an armed cell that has already struck and which will continue to strike," he said.

The alleged ringleader of the Madrid attack, Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, and four other suspects died in an April 2004 explosion in an apartment outside Madrid, apparently committing suicide to avoid capture. A Spanish investigator testified in June that Ahmed had been seen at the 35-year-old Fakhet's apartment in Madrid. Ahmed's lawyer has acknowledged that Ahmed knew members of the cell, but denied he had any knowledge of their plot.

Romanelli told the court that Spanish investigators became aware of the Madrid cell by monitoring Ahmed, a known radical, after his arrival in Spain on Sept. 12, 2002. "The investigation in Spain originated from Rabei, and from Rabei they led to Sarhane the Tunisian," Romanelli told the court. "It is not relevant who was the head of the group, but that it was a group of terrorist murderers, ready to strike soon."

The prosecutor argued that the same group that carried out the Madrid attacks has been involved in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. To illustrate the cell's reach, Romanelli identified as one of Ahmed's disciples Mourad Chabarou, who was found guilty in Belgium of aiding and abetting terrorists, including suspects in the Madrid train bombings. One of those - Mohammed Afalah - is believed to have staged a suicide attack in Iraq sometime in May 2005. "Those who organize and manage the attacks in Europe are the same who organize and direct the attacks in Iraq," Romanelli said.

Spanish authorities tipped Italian investigators to Ahmed's presence in Italy after the March 11, 2004, attacks, telling them that an Italian telephone card had been placed in the cell phone of one of the Madrid massacre suspects, under the name of Mohammad the Egyptian, Romanelli said.

Authorities subsequently bugged the apartment where Ahmed was living with Ragei, and overhead Ahmed instructing the younger man with extremist videos showing the murders of Western hostages in Iraq, as well as materials culled from the Internet, according to prosecutors. Ahmed also told Ragei that he was involved with the Madrid attacks, Romanelli said, quoting Ahmed as saying: "I'm the thread to Madrid, it's my work." Despite Ahmed's claims, Spanish authorities have never identified him as one of the masterminds.

Defense lawyers are scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, and a verdict is expected Nov. 6.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20061027/45418440_3ca6_15526200610271973381010

Petronas

11-06-2006, 06:30 PM

Italy (Country threat level - 3): Explosives detonated outside the offices of the far-right group Forza Nuova in central Rome at approximately 0300 local time (0200 UTC) on 6 November 2006. The blast damaged the building and vehicles nearby, but there were no reports of injuries. No further information is currently available.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

Vancouver

07-21-2007, 10:01 PM

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3401294
AP:
Italian police arrested three Moroccans on Saturday an imam and two aides accusing them of belonging to a militant cell that allegedly used a mosque in central Italy as a terror training camp.

The cell held courses on hand-to-hand combat and used propaganda films and documents downloaded from the Internet to teach students how to prepare poisons and explosives, pilot a Boeing 747 and send encrypted messages, anti-terrorism police in Rome said in a statement.

The mosque on the outskirts of Perugia, the Umbrian capital, also offered weapons training, as well as instructions on how to ambush, how to reach combat zones safely and how to send encrypted messages, police said.

Officers seized barrels of chemical substances, including acids, nitrates and ferrocyanide, found in the mosque's cellar, police said, speculating that the chemicals could have been used for experiments in the terror training courses.

Police identified the imam as 41-year-old Korchi El Mostapha and his two aides as Mohamed El Jari, 47, and Driss Safika, 46. A fourth Moroccan was still being sought and was believed to be abroad.

The three men, arrested in Perugia, are accused of international terrorism, with the arrests coming after a two-year investigation. An additional 20 people who frequented Perugia's Ponte Felcino mosque were being investigated for various charges, including violating Italy's immigration laws, police said.

(continues)

NYer

07-22-2007, 08:47 AM

Among the items that police seized during the mosque raid were several barrels of chemicals and an instruction manual on how to pilot a Boeing 747 (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/07/21/italy.terrorism.ap/index.html).

Good catch, Van ... I didn't know Flight Simulators were halal. Live and learn.

Petronas

07-22-2007, 08:43 PM

Mosques have always been not only places of worship but also places where military operations were planned and weapons stored. What happened at Lal Masjid in Islamabad and now in Perugia is, historically, not an aberration.

Petronas

08-02-2007, 02:11 PM

Italy: North African jihadists pose 'biggest' terror threat
Rome, 1 August

Italy faces its "biggest terrorism risks" from North African jihadists, including some linked to Islamist networks in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia, according to a report by the Italian secret services.

"Collaboration and synergies" exist between radical groups within the North African community in Europe and Italy and "events in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria", the secret services said in the latest update of a periodical report presented to the Italian government on Wednesday.

The report comes just over a week after police arrested three Moroccans - including a local imam - in the central city of Perugia on suspicion of running a "terror school". The imam was found in possession of chemicals that investigators said could be used to manufacture explosives and poisonous substances.

"Certain nationalist and neo-[Muslim] fundamentalist factions, in opposition the governments of their [North African] coutries of origin, have developed new initiatives aimed at building a profile in Europe so as to influence the [numerically] substantial [North African] immigrant communties", in Italy and Europe, the report said.

The Italian secret services also warned of a possible resurgence in left-wing terrorism, that bloodied the country during much of the 1970s and 80s. The existence of such a threat was evident, the report said, in the February arrests in northern Italy of 15 suspects allegedly involved in plotting assassinations and other attacks in the name of the Red Brgiades, historically one of Italy's most active leftist terror groups.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1165148434

Petronas

08-11-2007, 02:50 PM

Islamic centre attacked in northern Italy
Saturday, August 11, 2007

Unidentified assailants attacked an Islamic cultural centre in northern Italy overnight, police said on Friday, prompting Muslim community leaders to express concern that hostility in Italy towards their faith may be growing. Two petrol bombs were hurled at the building in Abbiategrasso, on the outskirts of Milan, and a pipe bomb, which did not explode, was left outside. No one was injured and the building was undamaged. “There is worry among Muslims about ... Islamophobia,” said Omar Camiletti, an adviser to the Muslim World League in Italy.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\11\story_11-8-2007_pg7_59

NYer

08-12-2007, 07:24 PM

Probe unearths $40 Million "Black Channel" Iraq Arms Deal. (http://apnews.myway.com//article/20070812/D8QVKC3O0.html)

In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.

More at link ...

Petronas

10-23-2007, 12:55 AM

Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, one also sees this rapprochement with the jihadis among the Neo Nazi so-called extreme right (see the statements of August Kreis of Aryan Nations)

Italy's Left-Wing Terrorists Flirt with Radical Islamists
September 13, 2007

Last February, in the quiet of a secluded northern Italian country house, three Italian far left militants brainstormed, unaware that counter-terrorism officials were listening to their every word. The men were known members of the so-called "New Red Brigades," discussing new strategies for the group. Alfredo Davanzo, the ideologue of the group who had just returned from France using a forged passport, spoke about the need to overcome the organization's isolation, caused by its secrecy and the waves of arrests it had suffered (ironically, the three would be arrested the following Monday). The group, said the men, should find new venues for their recruitment efforts and pointed to Italian mosques, described as "propellers of protests and struggles," as one of the most obvious choices (Corriere della Sera, July 30). The conversation is just another indication of what Italian intelligence officials have warned about for the last few years: some of the most militant segments of the Italian extreme left have displayed an increasing interest in and admiration for radical Islam. What has been only purely moral support up to now could possibly develop into a dangerous cooperation. ...

A vivid and more detailed example of this trend is provided by the writings of a group of Paris-based Italian militants linked to the "New Red Brigades" in their magazine La Voce (The Voice), which was published between 2000 and 2006.

In keeping with the traditional position of the extreme left on the Arab-Israeli conflict, La Voce describes how the "Palestinian popular masses" of the second intifada are making "the heroism of the Red Army, the fighters of Stalingrad, the participants to the Long March and the Vietnamese re-live" in their effort to dismantle "the racist and theocratic state of the Zionists and the imperialists." Unsurprisingly, similar views are expressed about U.S. and Italian efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The novelty of La Voce lies in its view of the various factions of the "Palestinian resistance." Traditionally, the Red Brigades had always politically (and, in some cases, materially) supported Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine due to ideological similarities. In contrast, La Voce breaks from this position and harshly criticizes Fatah as sellouts whose concessions in Oslo have forced the Palestinian people into "a state of semi-slavery."

Moreover, La Voce openly expresses its support for various Islamist groups, breaking the ideological barrier that separates a Marxist group and a religiously-inspired movement. Displaying a bizarre description of Hamas, La Voce calls it an organization "fighting for a democratic Palestine, free of discriminations based on race, religion or nationality," ignoring Hamas' openly declared foremost goal to create a strict Islamic state in Palestine. Further, La Voce describes Hamas and Hezbollah, together with the "Islamic resistance in Afghanistan and Somalia," as the main exponents of the "democratic and anti-imperialist revolution taking place in Arab and Muslim countries." The "imperialist bourgeoisie" is threatened by "the positive and progressive role of these organizations, their democratic and anti-imperialist spirit." Similarly, La Voce states that "Muslim revolutionary priests" are being arrested in Europe on the pretext of the war on terrorism only because the "imperialist bourgeoisie" wants to silence Islam, which is the religion of the new proletariat.

This Marxist-dominated worldview prevents the militants behind La Voce from making a realistic assessment of the nature of organizations such as Hamas or Hezbollah. Yet, the endorsement of these organizations is not absolute, but conditioned on the current status of the communist movement. La Voce states that Islamist groups have managed to "take the lead of the revolution" against imperialism only because of the inability of the communist movement to do so. "The leading role of the reactionary [Islamic] clerics," writes La Voce, "is an effect of the decay of the communist movement and will disappear when the latter will resurge." Therefore, the Islamist movement is useful in keeping the pressure on the imperialists while the communist movement is undergoing a phase of weakness, but this reliance will naturally disappear when the latter, natural leader of the global revolution will re-gain its strength and will be able to "lead the next wave of the proletarian revolution." ...

It is extremely difficult to predict how different segments of the Islamist movement will react to this overture and if a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" attitude will overshadow the immense ideological differences between the two movements. Italian authorities, however, are severely worried by the possibility that the links between the two movements—both of which have the motivation and the capability to use violence—could extend beyond statements to more formal cooperation.

http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373642