Italy Police Swoop on Muslim Suspects in Dawn Raid - source: Reuters, June 24, 2003
MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police arrested on Tuesday a Muslim cleric and five other men suspected of financing an Islamic extremist organization that has links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group.
The six suspects, all from Tunisia and Morocco, were seized in dawn raids by more than 170 police on 42 houses across northern Italy. A seventh suspect is still on the run.
"They formed a logistical and economic support structure ... that funded militants from a network tied to al Qaeda," Finance Police Colonel Stefano Grassi told a news conference.
He said Tuesday's swoop followed a two year investigation into organized crime which uncovered a complex web of money-spinning scams that fed foreign bank accounts in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
"These aren't the people who plant bombs. These are supporters who were involved in all sorts of criminal activities," said a police official who declined to be named.
Finance Police said the men were all members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has been fighting Algerian authorities for several years to set up a purist Islamist state. It is thought to have ties to al Qaeda.
The group is believed to be holding 15 European tourists hostage in the Sahara desert after seizing them more than three months ago. A second group of 17 tourists were freed unharmed on May 13 after commandos stormed a GSPC hideout.
The arrested cleric was named as El Mahfoudi Mohamed, a Moroccan-born imam based at Gallarate mosque, north of Milan.
The others were all Tunisians, including 37-year-old Abdooui Iyousef, seen as a group ringleader who has been placed on a terrorist blacklist by the U.S. Treasury.
Grassi said another of those in custody was "directly tied" to Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, also known as Ramzi Binalshibh, who was seized in Pakistan last year and is suspected of providing logistical backing for the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The six face an array of charges, including providing financial and logistical support to Islamic terrorist networks, trafficking in illegal immigrants, receiving counterfeit documents and trafficking in stolen cars.
They are also suspected of seeking recruits among Italy's growing immigrant community, with an eye to sending them abroad for training with militant organizations.
The leader of the Milan cell of the Salafist group was sentenced last December to four and a half years in jail for making counterfeit documents and organizing illegal immigration.
Italian police have launched numerous crackdowns on suspected Muslim militants following September 11 and Washington believes a Milan mosque acted as a main European logistics base for al Qaeda. The mosque denied the accusations.