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http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.317884369&par=0

TERRORISM: ISLAMIST WEBSITE EXALTS ITALIAN ARRESTS
Dubai, 5 July (AKI) - In a banner headline an Islamist website close to al-Qaeda has welcomed with jubilation the arrest on Wednesday of two officials from Italy SISMI intelligence agency - its director Marco Mancini and Gen. Gustavo Pignero - over the alleged kidnapping of former Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr on Italian soil by CIA agents and his subsequent interrogation and torture in Egypt.

"Italian press sources today announced the arrest of several Italian secret service agents accused of involvement in the abduction of an Egyptian imam in Italy," the Islammemo.cc. website said. The website is close to the Iraqi insurgency and sympathisers of Iraq's disbanded Baath party. It is used as a message-board by al-Qaeda.

Nasr, also known Abu Omar, is believed to have been abducted by CIA agents in a street in the northern Italian city of Milan on 17 February, 2003. Prosecutors allege Omar was subsequently flown, via Italian and German military bases, to Egypt, and once there, tortured.

Milan prosecutors accuse SISMI of having cooperated in Omar's kidnapping, which was allegedly part of a clandestine 'extraordinary rendition' operation - a practice Washington admits it has used to capture and deport foreign terror suspects, often to countries where they could face torture.

The prosecutors also announced they have issued warrants for the arrests of four Americans in connection with Nasr's kidnap. Wednesday's warrants are in addition to 22 issued last year for other Americans alleged to have been involved in the abduction. In April, Italy's justice minister declined to request that those suspects be extradited from the United States.

The former government of conservative prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a close ally of US President George W. Bush, has always denied any involvement by Italy's secret services in the kidnapping of Nasr.