ROME Italian police on Friday arrested 10 people and were looking for eight others suspected of belonging to an armed group linked to al Qaeda who had plotted attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and at least at one point the Vatican. Wiretaps and other intelligence revealed that the group -- some of whom had direct contact with Osama bin Laden 's network -- planned to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as in Italy, according to Caligari Chief Prosecutor Mauro Mura. Talk of this took place March 2010, around the time a possible suicide bomber from Afghanistan entered Italy before leaving the European nation, Mura said. When asked about this report, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said "it seems that we are talking about a hypothesis of the year 2010 that didn't come to fruition. Police wire taps had determined that two people among the 18 targeted by arrest warrants were suspected of being part of a group that had protected al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. special forces at his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011, police said in a statement. One was apprehended on a flight from Italy to Pakistan while carrying 55,000 euros, or nearly $60,000, police said. Police: Some suspects were involved in deadly 2009 Pakistan blast 
 
 The operation was expected to result in the arrest of 18 people, most of them from Pakistan, said spokesman Paolo Meloni, who represents the police in Sassari, Sardinia, where the investigation is being coordinated.
– Italian police say they have taken down a terror cell comprised of businessmen who financed al-Qaeda from Sardinia. Counterterrorism agents arrested 18 Pakistani and Afghan nationals in seven provinces today in "one of the most important operations we ever conducted," the lead investigator tells NBC News. "We are talking people with connections with al-Qaeda at the highest level" who police say intended to stage terror strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan and funneled money to Pakistan using an ancient trust-based transfer system called hawala. Most of the businessmen appeared to be leading normal lives, but two are believed to have once been part of Osama bin Laden's network of guards, Reuters reports. In a wiretapped conversation, another claimed bin Laden personally sent him to Italy. "We believe they were in touch with people who knew the whereabouts of bin Laden, to the point that they would frequently ask over the phone about his health while he was in hiding," the investigator says. Some members had allegedly planned an attack against Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in 2010—which never came to fruition—while police say others were involved in a 2009 market bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed more than 100 people. The cell, headquartered in Sassari, Sardinia, reports CNN, allegedly had "an abundant amount of weapons" and wanted to support attacks that would erode the Pakistan government's support of US forces in Afghanistan. A press conference is scheduled for later today.