ITALY: Italian police yesterday confirmed that 28 Pakistanis had been arrested in Naples late on Thursday and charged with involvement in "international terrorism".
Although explosives and maps found during the Naples raid would suggest that the men formed part of a sleeper cell linked to an Islamic terrorist movement, police were unable to confirm a specific link to al-Qaeda.
Over the last year, at least 149 people have been arrested in Italy in a systematic crackdown on Islamic terrorist cells - just last week five Moroccans were arrested near Rovigo, Northern Italy after being found with one kilo of C4 plastic explosives.
The 28 Pakistani men, aged between 20 and 48, were found accidentally during a routine search for illegal immigrants in the Forcella area of Naples, a zone dominated by the camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia.
Some 800 grams of explosives, detonators, fuses, detailed maps of Naples, 100 mobile phones and documents on falsifying passports were found during the raid in an area dominated by the Giuliano organised crime family.
Security sources suggested the arrests could prove significant. Furthermore, Naples has to be classified as an obvious target for Islamic terrorism, given that NATO's Southern Command headquarters is based in nearby Bagnoli, and the US Navy's Sixth Fleet is based at Gaeta, just down the coast. Among the many maps found was one of Bagnoli.
Nearly all the arrested men were without legal documents, having arrived in Italy clandestinely. It is not clear whether their presence in a camorra-dominated ghetto is coincidental or indicative of a "working relationship" between organised crime and Islamic terrorism.
Elements in the Giuliano family have long been involved in producing false documents.
Italian authorities are also working with the CIA to investigate a possible al-Qaeda "sleeping cell" in the northern city of Turin, according to La Repubblica newspaper.
The investigations began 18 months ago when it emerged that al-Qaeda suspects being held at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had spent a significant amount of time in the Italian city.
The report said authorities suspected some link between the Turin cell and militants in Afghanistan and Chechnya. No arrests have yet been made.
Of the terror suspects who have been arrested over the past year most have not been charged due to lack of evidence.
(Additional reporting: Guardian)