|
Latest News
Have your say
Back to index
|
Three terror warrants served against Algerian suspects
23-12-2005
Naples, (ANSA): Three Algerians were served with arrest warrants in Italy on Friday on suspicion of links to international terrorism .
Two were arrested in Salerno and a town near Catanzaro in Calabria, while the third warrant was served in jail on the alleged ringleader of their suspected cell .
The two men arrested Friday were dentified as Achour Rabah and Tartag Sami .
The man already in jail has been named as Yamine Bouhrama. He has been in custody in Naples since November 15. Police said the three were suspected of ties with the fundamentalist Algerian militant group known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat .
The Salafist Group - known by its French initials GSPC - is fighting for the creation of an Islamic state in Algeria and has declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network .
Italian police collaborated with other police forces in the operation, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said. The "brilliant" operation, he said, confirmed that Italian police and intelligence services were making "assiduous" efforts to foil terror threats against Italy and Europe .
At the time of Bourhama's arrest in mid-November, investigators said he was a terrorist operative ready to carry out an attack .
Police wiretaps picked up a conversation following July terrorist bombings in London in which Bouhrama and an unidentified person talked about "finding a ship like the Titanic", packing it with explosives and killing 10,000 people in Italy .
In a separate conversation after July terrorist attack in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Bouhrama was recorded as saying that "soon there'll be an even bigger celebration" .
Police searched Bouhrama's home, turning up material containing Islamic extremist propaganda but no weapons or explosives .
Bouhrama was said to have contacts in Norway, where he had apparently lived under false ID thanks to documents obtained in France .
Rabah and Sami, the two Algerians arrested on Friday, are believed to have been Bourhama's chief aides in plotting attacks and mantaining links between cells in southern and northern Italy .
Although Sami had moved to Calabria for work, both were officially domiciled at Capaccio Scala near Salerno, a stone's throw from the world-famous Ancient Greek temples of Paestum. In September in a separate terrorism probe, charges were filed against 11 Algerians suspected of ties to the Salafist Group for Call and Combat .
Investigators said the men were under investigation for international terrorism and that several were already in jail on other charges .
They added that some of the Algerians were included on terror suspect lists drawn up by the European Union, the United States and the United Nations .
Italy, which is a staunch ally of the USA and has troops serving in Iraq, has been the target of numerous Internet threats from purported terrorists .
Email this story to a friend | Printable Version
|
Latest News
Other News from Campaign on Terror section
|
