Quite an info summary, Piasa.
Thank you.
--"Al Qaeda seeking funds in Italy," By John Phillips THE WASHINGTON TIMES, June 12, 2004
(snip)ROME — Al Qaeda has built a thriving support network among Italians and is busily collecting funds from left-wing militants to buy arms used to kill Americans and other allied troops in Iraq, news reports and a high-level intelligence official say.
Details of the fund raising for Osama bin Laden's foot soldiers were disclosed in the Italian press as the government put final touches on extraordinary security for the recent visit to Rome by President Bush.
"Al Qaeda's front no longer consists exclusively of Arabs or Muslims," said a recent front-page article in the Libero newspaper. "Italian extremists are enrolled in al Qaeda."
Details of this and other reports were confirmed by a senior Italian intelligence official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
Italian extremists' involvement with the terrorists is thought to be so deep that, according to press reports, at least one Italian accomplice was present when an Italian contractor was killed in April in Iraq.
Much of the fund raising for al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents has been done by two groups — the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance (IPA), made up of Iraqi exiles, and the Anti-Imperialist Alliance, made up mainly of European leftists.
Their leader, Abdul Jabbar Kubaisy, reconciled with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in February 2003 and committed the group "to confront American imperialist aggression."
Mr. Kubaisy returned to Baghdad when the United States invaded Iraq, leaving his deputy, Awni al Kalemji, to organize anti-American propaganda, according a senior official of the Italian military intelligence organization SISMI.
Mr. Kalemji took part last summer in the "Anti-Imperialist Camp," a weeklong gathering of communists and other leftists including revolutionaries from Iraq, the Philippines, Nepal, the Palestinian territories and Venezuela. The camp was held in the Umbrian hill town of Assisi, home of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), patron saint of animals and the environment and founder of the Franciscan Order of monks.
Also present were radical intellectuals such as Franco Cardini, a leading expert on medieval history who says that recent videos of Osama bin Laden are fakes distributed by the CIA to foster anti-Islamic sentiment.
Another participant was the Rev. Jean-Marie Benjamin, a French Roman Catholic priest who in February 2003 organized a visit to the Vatican by then Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.
Father Benjamin's name appeared on a list of 270 persons and organizations that received suspect vouchers under the U.N.-run Iraqi oil-for-food program, the subject of several investigations.... ...
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