(ANSA) - Rome, March 30 - There are an estimated 50 'foreign fighters' who have returned to Italy from ISIS's former war zones, national anti-mafia and anti-terror prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho told Naples newspaper Il Mattino on Friday.

"Our country is considered more a territory of passage, after the end of the State of Daesh," he said.

"We have to keep an eye on second-generation immigrants, who suffer from social conditions of marginalisation and offer the main seed bed for radicalisation towards terrorism," de Raho said. "But the risk is not very high, and our network of prevention is always active". </s> ROME (Reuters) - Italy on Thursday arrested five men in an operation against suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism, police said, after tracing the phone contacts of the Berlin truck attacker shot in Milan in late 2016.

 Four of the men, all Tunisians, were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to aid illegal immigration, while a fifth man, who is also believed to be Tunisian, was picked up for allegedly plotting militant attacks, prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco said.

 While the suspects played no part in the December 2016 truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, police discovered them by following the telephone records of Anis Amri, the Tunisian man shot dead near Milan four days after the assault on the Christmas market. 

 "No link at all has been found" between the men and the Berlin attack, said Walter Dian, an anti-terrorism police official from Latina, a city south of the capital.

 Instead, police said Amri may have been heading south to acquire false documents from them.

 Amri was brought to Italy after being rescued at sea from a migrant boat in February 2011, and he later spent almost four years in prison in Sicily for vandalism, threats and theft. In 2015, he was released and told to leave the country. He went to Germany.

 "There's no concrete evidence that leads us to think a specific attack was planned, but there is enough proof for us to think that this was where things were heading," Colaiocco told reporters, referring to the man arrested on terrorism charges.

 He had consulted the Internet on how to use a missile launcher, and he had looked into the cost of renting a pick-up truck as well, the prosecutor said. 

 Italy has already expelled other three men tied to Amri on evidence that they had become radicalized Islamists amid a general increase in expulsions over the past year.

 As part of their operation, police were carrying out searches in Rome, the southern port city of Naples and the central and southern towns of Latina, Viterbo, Caserta and Matera, investigators said.

 Thursday's sweep is not connected to a series of similar raids this month, police said. 

 On Wednesday anti-terrorism police arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin who they said was an Islamic State sympathizer planning a possible truck attack.

 Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Wednesday the security threat to Italy from Islamic State supporters was higher than ever because more foreign fighters were attempting to return to Europe via Italy after the jihadist group suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq.

 So far this year, 29 foreigners, mostly Muslims, have been expelled from Italy as suspected threats to national security.

 

 (Writing by Gavin Jones and Steve Scherer; Editing by Alison Williams) </s> ROME (Reuters) - Italy on Thursday arrested five men in an operation against suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism, police said, after tracing the phone contacts of the Berlin truck attacker shot in Milan in late 2016.

Four of the men, all Tunisians, were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to aid illegal immigration, while a fifth man, who is also believed to be Tunisian, was picked up for allegedly plotting militant attacks, prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco said.

While the suspects played no part in the December 2016 truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, police discovered them by following the telephone records of Anis Amri, the Tunisian man shot dead near Milan four days after the assault on the Christmas market.

“No link at all has been found” between the men and the Berlin attack, said Walter Dian, an anti-terrorism police official from Latina, a city south of the capital.

Instead, police said Amri may have been heading south to acquire false documents from them.

Amri was brought to Italy after being rescued at sea from a migrant boat in February 2011, and he later spent almost four years in prison in Sicily for vandalism, threats and theft. In 2015, he was released and told to leave the country. He went to Germany.

“There’s no concrete evidence that leads us to think a specific attack was planned, but there is enough proof for us to think that this was where things were heading,” Colaiocco told reporters, referring to the man arrested on terrorism charges.

He had consulted the Internet on how to use a missile launcher, and he had looked into the cost of renting a pick-up truck as well, the prosecutor said.

Italy has already expelled other three men tied to Amri on evidence that they had become radicalized Islamists amid a general increase in expulsions over the past year.

As part of their operation, police were carrying out searches in Rome, the southern port city of Naples and the central and southern towns of Latina, Viterbo, Caserta and Matera, investigators said.

Thursday’s sweep is not connected to a series of similar raids this month, police said.

On Wednesday anti-terrorism police arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin who they said was an Islamic State sympathizer planning a possible truck attack.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Wednesday the security threat to Italy from Islamic State supporters was higher than ever because more foreign fighters were attempting to return to Europe via Italy after the jihadist group suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq.

So far this year, 29 foreigners, mostly Muslims, have been expelled from Italy as suspected threats to national security. </s> ROME (Reuters) - Italian anti-terrorism police on Wednesday arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin who they said was an Islamic State sympathizer planning a truck attack.

It was the latest in a series of arrests this month involving suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism and came as Italy stepped up the number of foreigners it expels.

Elmahdi Halili, 23, arrested in the northern city of Turin, “was studying how to prepare a truck for an attack”, Francesco Messina, the city’s police chief said. “He was learning how to use a knife and looking into where and how to attack.”

Assailants in London carried out three vehicle attacks last year. In 2016, militants mowed down scores of people in Nice and Berlin.

Police said Halili received a two-year suspended prison term in 2015 for “instigating terrorism” by running a website praising Islamic State and hailing the attacks it or its supporters perpetrated in Europe.

It was not immediately possible to seek comment from Halili or anyone representing him.

“The terrorist risk is very high,” said Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, which is in talks to form a government after the inconclusive March 4 election.

“We want immediate action, so everyone who crosses our borders by sea or land be monitored and that all (migrant) boat arrivals on our coasts be suspended,” he added. Almost 120,000 boat migrants reached Italy from North Africa last year.

Wednesday’s police operation targeted an undisclosed number of accomplices, both foreign and Italian, some of whom had converted to Islam and were part of “a campaign of radicalization”.

In an interview in Wednesday’s Turin newspaper La Stampa, Interior Minister Marco Minniti said the security threat to Italy from supporters of Islamic State was higher than ever.

He attributed this to more foreign fighters attempting to return to Europe via Italy after Islamic State suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq.

On Tuesday in southern Foggia, police arrested an Egyptian-born man suspected of being an Islamic State member and of indoctrinating children in a cultural center he ran. He encouraged them to kill non-Muslims, police said.

On March 15, police acting on a tip from the U.S. FBI arrested a man of Latvian origin who they said had been preparing pipe bombs. A judge’s detention order said the man had been considering an attack on a kindergarten.

In recent months, Italy has stepped up expulsions of foreigners believed to be a threat to national security. So far this year, 29 have been expelled, most of them Muslims, compared with 132 for all of 2017. </s> ROME: Italian police on Thursday arrested five Tunisians as part of what they said was a major operation against suspected supporters of terrorism in central and southern Italy.

The swoop is the latest in a series of similar raids this month, coming as Italy steps up the number of foreigners it expels.

On Wednesday anti-terrorism police arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin who they said was an Islamic State sympathiser planning a truck attack.

"A vast anti-terrorism operation" was being carried out by special investigation forces based in Rome and the nearby town of Latina, police said in a statement on Thursday.

The five Tunisians detained are suspected of being part of a network connected to Anis Amri, the Tunisian who killed 12 people when he drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December 2016, judicial sources told Reuters.

Amri was shot dead by Italian police near Milan four days after the Berlin attack.

Prosecutors suspect the arrested Tunisians of crimes including planning international terrorism, falsifying documents and helping illegal immigration of radicalised Tunisians, the sources said.

However, the sources said there was no evidence the suspects participated directly in the Berlin truck attack or that they were preparing any imminent attack in Italy.

As part of their operation, police were carrying out searches in Rome, the southern port city of Naples and the central and southern towns of Latina, Viterbo, Caserta and Matera, the sources said.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Wednesday the security threat to Italy from Islamic State supporters was higher than ever because more foreign fighters were attempting to return to Europe via Italy after the jihadist group suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq.

So far this year, 29 foreigners, mostly Muslims, have been expelled from Italy as suspected threats to national security. </s> ROME (Reuters) - Italy on Thursday arrested five men in an operation against suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism, police said, after tracing the phone contacts of the Berlin truck attacker shot in Milan in late 2016.

Suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism are seen in this picture released by Italian Police in Rome, Italy, March 29, 2018. Italian Police press office/Handout via Reuters

Four of the men, all Tunisians, were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to aid illegal immigration, while a fifth man, who is also believed to be Tunisian, was picked up for allegedly plotting militant attacks, prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco said.

While the suspects played no part in the December 2016 truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, police discovered them by following the telephone records of Anis Amri, the Tunisian man shot dead near Milan four days after the assault on the Christmas market.

“No link at all has been found” between the men and the Berlin attack, said Walter Dian, an anti-terrorism police official from Latina, a city south of the capital.

Instead, police said Amri may have been heading south to acquire false documents from them.

Amri was brought to Italy after being rescued at sea from a migrant boat in February 2011, and he later spent almost four years in prison in Sicily for vandalism, threats and theft. In 2015, he was released and told to leave the country. He went to Germany.

“There’s no concrete evidence that leads us to think a specific attack was planned, but there is enough proof for us to think that this was where things were heading,” Colaiocco told reporters, referring to the man arrested on terrorism charges.

He had consulted the Internet on how to use a missile launcher, and he had looked into the cost of renting a pick-up truck as well, the prosecutor said.

Italy has already expelled other three men tied to Amri on evidence that they had become radicalized Islamists amid a general increase in expulsions over the past year.

As part of their operation, police were carrying out searches in Rome, the southern port city of Naples and the central and southern towns of Latina, Viterbo, Caserta and Matera, investigators said.

Thursday’s sweep is not connected to a series of similar raids this month, police said.

On Wednesday anti-terrorism police arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin who they said was an Islamic State sympathizer planning a possible truck attack.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Wednesday the security threat to Italy from Islamic State supporters was higher than ever because more foreign fighters were attempting to return to Europe via Italy after the jihadist group suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq.

So far this year, 29 foreigners, mostly Muslims, have been expelled from Italy as suspected threats to national security. </s> Plenty of attention has been paid to the European-born fighters who have joined the Islamic State and other Islamist militant groups in the Middle East — and the efforts of European countries to stop them. But what about those fighting in Ukraine?

In Italy, it has long been an open secret that far-right activists were fighting in Donbass, the eastern Ukrainian region where pro-Russian separatists — with Russian government assistance — have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014. Italian authorities, however, didn’t seem interested in stopping them.

That suddenly changed last week, when prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Genoa ordered the arrest of six men accused of joining pro-Russian militias in Donbass and recruiting others to their cause. The arrests marked the first time Italian authorities have charged anyone with fighting in Ukraine, though three of the men remain at large. The same prosecutors have also charged 15 other people with being part of the recruitment ring.

“What’s interesting is that some of them were already known faces whose activities in Ukraine were common knowledge,” said Francesco Marone, a research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.

One of the fugitives is Andrea Palmieri, a former leader of the far-right hooligan group Bulldog Lucca who had previously appeared on national TV boasting about fighting in Ukraine. Another one is Gabriele Carugati, the son of a politician from the far-right League party — the League is one of Italy’s two current governing parties — who had publicly praised her son’s choice to fight in Ukraine.

[Now that the Islamic State has fallen in Iraq and Syria, where are all its fighters going?]

The Genoa police had been investigating far-right networks in the area since 2016, according to the newspaper Genova Today. But the arrests seem to have come in response to complaints from Ukraine earlier this year. In April, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament submitted a list of 25 Italian citizens believed to be fighting with pro-Russian militias.

Authorities in Genoa carried out the investigations and arrests in collaboration with the ROS, the anti-organizated crime and anti-terrorism branch of the Carabinieri, Italy’s paramilitary national police force, but no officials from the national government have yet commented on the arrests.

Foreign fighters from Italy generally fall into three categories: those fighting with Islamist groups, mostly in Syria or Libya; those joining the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia, and other Kurdish groups; and those fighting in Ukraine, Marone said.

While Italy approved a special law against foreign fighters in 2015, it targeted youth joining the Islamic State and other Islamist groups. But it does not apply to those joining separatist groups in Ukraine, who are being prosecuted as unauthorized mercenaries rather than terrorists because pro-Russian militias are not considered terrorist groups by Italy.

“Authorities have different attitudes toward these 3 groups,” Marone said. “ISIS returnees are seen as a threat because they belong to an organization that also carries attacks in Europe, while foreign fighters coming back from Kurdistan are widely tolerated, and so were those coming back from Ukraine”

Marone argued that far-right fighters still post a threat because of their links to violent groups within Italy. “They are seen as dangerous not because they could carry some kind of terror attack or guerrilla operations in Italy, but because they are violent individuals who have learned how to use weapons,” he said.

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He fought with Russian-backed militants in Ukraine. Now he’s a U.S. soldier. </s> The swoop is the latest in a series of similar raids this month, coming as Italy steps up the number of foreigners it expels on grounds of national security.

On Wednesday anti-terrorism police arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin who they said was a so-called Islamic State sympathizer planning a truck attack.

"A vast anti-terrorism operation" was being carried out by special investigation forces based in Rome and the nearby town of Latina, police said in a statement on Thursday.

The five Tunisians detained are suspected of being part of a network connected to Anis Amri, the Tunisian who killed 12 people when he drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December 2016, judicial sources said.

Amri was shot dead by Italian police near Milan four days after the Berlin attack.

Prosecutors suspect the arrested Tunisians of crimes including planning international terrorism, falsifying documents and helping illegal immigration of radicalized Tunisians, the sources said.

However, they said there was no evidence the suspects participated directly in the Berlin truck attack - or that they were preparing any imminent attack in Italy.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Wednesday the security threat to Italy from Islamic State supporters was higher than ever because more foreign fighters were attempting to return to Europe via Italy after the jihadist group suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq.

So far this year, 29 foreigners, mostly Muslims, have been expelled from Italy as suspected threats to national security. </s> Rome (AFP) - Italian police Thursday arrested five people as part of an anti-terror raid linked to a Tunisian who staged a deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, Italian media reported.

Anis Amri, a rejected asylum seeker, had rammed a stolen truck into the crowded square, killing 12 people and wounding about 100 others.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on December 19, 2016 -- its deadliest ever carried out in Germany.

Amri, who had previously lived in Italy, was killed four days after the assault by police in a Milan suburb.

The five detained Thursday morning are accused of activities linked to "international terrorism" and procuring false documents for migrants, the Italian AGI news agency reported.

The suspects included a Tunisian national from the city of Latina, south of Rome, who had allegedly planned to provide Amri with fake identity papers to help him flee abroad, investigators told AGI.

The raids were carried out in several cities including Rome, Latina, and Naples.

Amri, who was 24 when he was shot dead by police, landed on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in 2011 and spent four years in prison in Sicily for burning down a school.

In the aftermath of the Berlin attack, Italian police raided several homes where Amri had reportedly stayed in 2015 in an agricultural region southeast of Rome.

The press reported that he had spent several weeks in Aprilia, about 40 kilometres south of the Italian capital, with a fellow Tunisian whom he met in Lampedusa.

At the time, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni ruled out the existence of "networks" supporting Amri in Italy, but judicial authorities said that the country's criminal underbelly often provided logistical support to European terrorists.

Following the deadly market attack, German police faced fierce criticism when it emerged that Amri -- who had been in Germany since 2015 and was registered under several different identities -- should have been deported.

On Wednesday, Italian police also arrested a 23-year-old Italian with Moroccan parents, Halili Elmahdi, in the northeastern city of Turin.

Police said Elmahdi showed alarming signs of radicalisation and was promoting Islamist extremism on social networks.

During a raid at his home, security forces uncovered manuals indicating how to kill someone with a knife and instructions for installing a bomb on board a truck.

The homes of 13 of Elmahdi's contacts were searched on the same day in several Italian cities.

Elmahdi is suspected of seeking to recruit Muslim "lone wolves" in Italy to commit attacks.

Prosecutors said that the 23-year-old, who was under surveillance after being arrested in 2015 on charges of glorifying terrorism, may have been ready to commit acts of terror because of his radicalisation.
National counter-terror prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho states that an estimated 50 people have returned to Italy after fighting with the Islamic State.