Italian police have found a photo of Britain's most senior military official, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, in an apartment where they arrested 28 Pakistanis suspected of links to al Qaeda.
The raid on the run-down building in Naples on Wednesday night, which also uncovered explosives, false documents and maps, was one of the biggest anti-terrorism operations Italy has seen since the September 11th attacks on the United States.
The photo of Sir Michael, chief of the defence staff, was in a Pakistani newspaper and ringed by a pen, sources say.
Sir Michael was due to visit NATO's installations in Naples around March 13th, the sources added.
"He is a target - not just from now but from the IRA. I do not know if he has already been informed, but clearly he will be," a spokesman for the British ministry of Defence said in London.
Islamic religious texts, photos of jihadmartyrs, piles of false documents, maps of the Naples area, addresses of global contacts and more than 100 mobile telephones were also found in the apartment, police said.
A judicial source said the maps had targets marked on them including the headquarters of NATO's southern European command on the city's outskirts, the US consulate in Naples and a US Navy air base at Capodichino, outside the city.
Military police burst into the apartment as part of a routine sweep against illegal immigration. They arrested all 28 men staying in the apartment after finding 28 ounces of explosives, 230 feet of fuse and electronic detonators crammed behind a false wall.
AFP