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From correspondents in Rome February 11, 2004 LARGELY seen until recently as a logistical base for Islamic terrorists, Italy has become a departure point for suicide attackers linked to al-Qaeda and active against US-led forces in Iraq, according to an Italian intelligence report released today. The document also warned that forces staging anti-coalition attacks in Iraq might expand their scope and targets. The report came weeks after Italian investigators said they shut down a European network suspected of recruiting Islamic militants to carry out attacks on US-led forces in Iraq. The investigators said the volunteers were drawn from Muslim youths...

Terror cells regroup - and now their target is Europe Secret intelligence papers from across the continent reveal a growing danger from a widening network of fanatics - and this is a struggle the West cannot lose Antony Barnett, Jason Burke and Zoe Smith Sunday January 11, 2004 The Observer They had been watching him for months, aware that his pop star good looks concealed a secret life as one of Europe's new terrorist kingpins. Finally, on a cold winter dawn, the police moved in. Abderrazak Mahdjoub did not resist as armed German officers surrounded his Hamburg home and led...

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police have arrested a Tunisian woman suspected of belonging to a Europe-wide network aimed at recruiting Islamic militants for suicide bombings in Iraq, police sources in Milan said on Saturday. They said Bentiwaa Farida Ben Bechir, a 42-year-old Tunisian, was arrested on Friday as she arrived at Milan's Malpensa airport on a flight from Tunis. Italy said last month it had smashed the suspected recruiting network when five arrests were made in Italy and Germany. Ben Bechir was initially reported as being among those arrested but it then emerged she was still free. Among the people...

MILAN, Italy - Authorities in Europe have shut down a network that recruited at least 200 Islamic militants to carry out attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Italian investigators told The Associated Press. The volunteers were drawn from Muslim youths living on the fringes of society in Western Europe, with loose connections to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida and Ansar al-Islam, a militant group in northern Iraq. One recruit from Italy may have been involved in a rocket attack on the Al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad in October, when the U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying there, officials told AP....

MILAN, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Italian investigators have uncovered a network of immigrants suspected of recruiting Islamic extremists throughout Europe to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq, judicial sources said on Friday. Police arrested four North Africans out of five on a wanted list, including the suspected ringleader, identified only as Sheikh Abderrazak -- an Algerian believed to have had contacts with those behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities. Abderrazak, in his 30s, was arrested in Germany on Friday, the Italian sources said. A German state prosecutor said in Hamburg that Abderrazak was arrested in the northern...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has ordered U.S. banks to freeze the assets of 15 foreigners suspected of having ties to al-Qaida terrorists cells in Italy. The Treasury Department's action, announced Wednesday, follows Italy's request that the 15 people be added to the United Nation's list of suspected terrorists whose assets should be frozen, the department said. The U.N's list is honored by member nations. Treasury issued an order Monday to block any financial assets in this country belonging to the 15 people. The order also prohibits the 15 from conducting any financial transactions in the United States and with...

ROME: Italian police said on Sunday they had arrested three Moroccans, one of them a Muslim cleric, for suspected links to fundamentalist Islamic cells. The three, detained on the request of Moroccan authorities, are accused of association with "terrorist" groups and fundraising to finance subversive activities, police said. "The operation took place last night in a number of Italian cities," a spokesman for the Varese police, near Milan, told Reuters, adding that all three men were Moroccan. Police in the central city of Florence said Mohamed Rafiq, who used to be a cleric at a mosque in the city outskirts,...

Tuesday June 24, 22:53 PM Italian police arrest six in crackdown on Islamist cell Italy's financial police launched a major swoop on an Islamist group said to have ties to the al-Qaeda network, raiding dozens of sites around Milan and arresting six for allegedly financing and abetting a terrorist organisation.In an operation unleashed at dawn, 170 officers searched around 40 sites including a mosque in the northern region of Lombardy, police said Tuesday.Five Tunisians and an imam, or religious leader, of Moroccan origin were arrested. A seventh Tunisian was also sought but is probably already imprisoned in Tunisia, police added.They...

About 170 Italian police have launched dawn raids in a swoop aimed at a group suspected of having ties to the al-Qaeda network. At least six people - thought to be five Tunisians and a Moroccan - have been arrested in the raids, which took place in and around the northern city of Milan. The raids were carried out by financial police, who targeted about 40 sites, including a mosque. An imam was said to be among those detained. The raids were "were part of a major operation against international terrorism" co-ordinated by Milan prosecutor Luigi Orsi, said a police...

ITALIAN police have arrested a Moroccan accused of links to a top al-Qaeda operative seized in Pakistan by the FBI last year, prosecutors in Milan said late today. Milan magistrate Guido Salvini said Mohamed Daki, 38, with an address in the northern city of Reggio Emilia, was arrested on Sunday. According to the charge sheet, Daki had contacts with Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged lieutenant of Osama bin Laden credited with planning the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Binalshibh was arrested in Pakistan on the anniversary of the attacks and brought to the United States to stand trial....