A man suspected of links to terrorist group Isis was arrested in southern Italy on Tuesday, accused of using an Islamic cultural centre to spread jihadist propaganda.

Anti-terrorism police arrested the man, identified in the media as 58-year-old Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian with Italian citizenship, in the city of Foggia in Puglia.

His bank accounts were seized and the centre he ran, Al Dawa, was searched and sealed off.

Accused of apology for terrorism and association for the purpose of terrorism, Rahman is said to have praised Isis attacks on social media and shared material glorifying the terrorist group.

He is suspected of attempting to spread similar propaganda at the cultural association of which he was president, and where he was in charge of teaching religious lessons to children as young as 4 years old, according to La Repubblica.

Secret recordings caught him telling youngsters to attack "unbelievers" with swords and bombs, the newspaper said.

The newspaper said Rahman was arrested as part of an investigation codenamed "Bad Teacher", the latest in a series of anti-terror operations in Foggia within the past year.

There have been four arrests and two expulsions since May 2017, according to Rai News, all of which are thought to have had some connection to the Al Dawa centre.

In July, police arrested a Chechen man who frequented the centre and was believed to belong to a terrorist group in the Caucasus. Having participated in violence in Chechnya and Syria, he was allegedly attempting to recruit others to carry out extremist attacks.

Separately, a Tunisian and an Algerian national were arrested and two Albanian brothers expelled on charges of aiding or promoting violent groups.

Italy has taken a hardline approach to so-called apologists for terrorism.

In early 2015 the country's cabinet approved a slew of anti-terrorism measures, including jail terms of up to six years for "foreign fighters" as well as those who recruit would-be jihadists. The measures also included confiscating the passports of suspected militants and giving more powers to Italy's intelligence services.

Since then, the country has deported well over 100 people for religious extremism.
• How Italy keeps track of 80 terrorism alerts each day
• A Facebook 'like' can constitute apology for terrorism, top Italian court rules</s>Over the past two days searches have been taking place in eight Italian cities including Milan, Modena, Bergamo , Naples and the capital Rome.

Police said a number of Italians who have converted to Islam are also involved in the investigation as well as citizens of foreign origin.

On Tuesday an Egyptian was arrested in Foggia. The fifty-nine year old is accused of teaching children extremist and violent interpretations of Islam.

The arrest came after Italian intelligence and finance officers monitored the suspect's sermons and bank accounts.

Italy has expelled 264 religious extremists since 2015 and unlike France, Spain, Germany, the UK and Sweden has not had any Islamic terror attacks.</s>Police arrested five people believed to have connections to the Tunisian Isis militant who killed 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, in a series of raids across central and southern Italy on Thursday.

Warrants were issued for one Palestinian national, who is accused of training and other activities for the purpose of international terrorism, and four Tunisians suspected of falsifying documents and facilitating illegal immigration.

They were named as Abdel Salem Napulsi, a 38-year-old Palestinian who was already being held at a Rome prison on separate drug charges, and Tunisian nationals Akram Baazaoui, Mohamed Baazoui, Dhiaddine Baazaoui and Rabie Baazoui, living in the southern cities of Naples and Caserta.

Searches were also carried out in the provinces of Latina, Matera and Viterbo.

The suspects were traced by analyzing the mobile phone records of Anis Amri, the man who killed 12 people and wounded 56 when he drove a truck into a crowded market in the German capital on December 19th 2016. Four days later Italian police tracked him to Milan, where he was killed in a shootout.

That led to an investigation into Amri's contacts in Italy, where he spent some four years prior to entering Germany. Italian authorities deported three foreign nationals he is believed to have been in touch with and who were judged a threat to national security.

Thursday's arrests suggest that his network in Italy may have extended further.

A video from the Rome police showing parts of what they described on Thursday as a "vast counter-terrorism operation".

Phone records show that those detained were in contact with some of the same individuals to whom Amri was also speaking.

In calls to a known drug dealer and radical, police said, Napulsi was recorded talking about cutting off the heads and genitals of "infidels", regretting that Tunisia was not under sharia law and complaining about the sight of women "walking around half naked" in Italy.

According to Repubblica, shortly before his arrest last October he attempted to buy or rent a truck that could be fitted with weapons.

The other suspects, meanwhile, were in touch with another of Amri's acquaintances. They allegedly helped dozens of Tunisians enter Italy illegally in exchange for hefty payments, providing fake documents that allowed their customers to enter other European countries.

The investigation, codenamed Mosaic, "stopped the radicalization phase from developing into terrorist activity," the Rome public prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco, who ordered the arrests, told a press conference.

"There is no concrete element to suggest that they were preparing an attack but there are elements that suggest they were getting ready for this."

Thursday's raids are the third anti-terrorism operation in Italy in as many days.

On Wednesday a Moroccan-Italian was arrested in Turin, accused of plotting to carrying out truck attacks in Italy, while on Tuesday police detained an Egyptian-Italian suspected of seeking to radicalize youngsters at an Islamic cultural centre in Foggia.

Separately, authorities had already placed Rome on heightened security alert in preparation for Easter celebrations that are expected to draw crowds of thousands.

Italy's anti-terrorism strategy committee held an emergency meeting on Wednesday, at which Interior Minister Marco Minniti called for extra security measures in busy public areas across the country.



 Anis Amri's body after he was shot by police in Milan. Photo: Daniele Bennati/AFP

Amri arrived in Italy in 2011, landing on the southern island of Lampedusa by boat. After committing robbery and other crimes he was sentenced to four years in prison in Sicily and is believed to have left Italy for Germany soon after his release, after Tunisia refused to repatriate him.

He is believed to have begun planning attacks around the same time, having been in touch with Isis recruiters and eventually pledging allegiance to the Islamist terrorist group.
• How Italy keeps track of 80 terrorism alerts each day
• A Facebook 'like' can constitute apology for terrorism, top Italian court rules</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 (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.</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.

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>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>Italian police on Thursday arrested five Tunisians suspected of being part of a terror network tied to Anis Amri, who killed 12 people in a truck ramming attack at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016.

Amri, a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia, was shot and killed by police in Milan four days after the Berlin attack claimed by the "Islamic State."

One of the five Tunisian nationals arrested in the city of Latina, south of Rome, is suspected of having planned to provide false documents to get Amri out of Italy, police said.

Read more: Germany: How do terrorist groups compare?

In the wake of the Berlin attack, German authorities came faced intense criticism after it emerged Amri used multiple fake documents and should have been deported to Tunisia.

The anti-terror raids were carried out in Rome, Latina, Naples and other cities.

Reuters cited security forces as saying that the five Tunisians were not suspected of directly participating in the Berlin truck attack, nor were they imminently preparing one in Italy.

Italian authorities have carried out numerous counterterrorism operations this month, including one on Wednesday that led to the arrest of an Italian citizen of Moroccan origin suspected of planning a knife attack or truck ramming.

On Tuesday, police arrested what they said was a radical Islamic preacher indoctrinating young children in Foggia.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti has put security service on high alert for potential terror plots targeting tourist hotspots and other busy areas.

Italy is one of the few major European countries to be spared a large-scale terror attack in recent years.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.</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.
Italian police arrest five Tunisians suspected of links to Anis Amri, perpetrator of the December 2016 terror attack in Germany.