http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/08/05/jihadist-headed-italy-migrant-trafficking-gang/
‘Jihadist’ Headed Italy Migrant Trafficking Gang
by BREITBART LONDON 5 Aug 2016
ROME (AFP) – Italian authorities said Friday they had broken up a people trafficking gang based near Naples headed by a Tunisian national they suspect of jihadist links.
The alleged gang leader’s suspected backing for radical Islamism was uncovered during an investigation into the group’s provision of false job contracts from local textile factories to enable illegal immigrants from North Africa to obtain work permits, a statement from the ROS police special operations unit said.
Arrest warrants have been issued for eight suspects. They included the Tunisian, who was said to have become radicalised in the last year and to have praised the recent terror attacks on Paris on social media.
Further details of the operation were to be released at a press conference later Friday.
It came against a backdrop of mounting concern about the possibility of Italy being hit by “lone wolf” terror attacks of the kind seen in neighbouring France, Belgium and Britain.
Recent weeks have seen a string of suspected Islamists expelled from the country on the order of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano.
Most of the orders, which are not subject to appeal within Italy, have been issued on the basis of the suspects having expressed support for radical Islamist ideas rather than any evidence of them actively planning to act on them.
Among those expelled was Aftab Farook, a young Pakistani who previously captained Italy’s under-19 cricket team.
Farook’s family say his expulsion breached his rights and are planning to challenge it via the European Court of Human Rights.
Italy’s centre-left government meanwhile is considering appointing a commission of experts to draw up proposals for combating radicalisation in the country’s Muslim population.
The panel, proposed by junior security minister Marco Minniti, would report directly to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
It would notably be tasked with setting guidelines for the profiling of potential suspects and parameters for monitoring mosques, workplaces and schools subject to possible infiltration by radical elements, La Stampa reported.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-security-arrests-idUSKCN10G1GC
Fri Aug 5, 2016
Italy arrests people smugglers led by alleged radical Islamist
Italian police on Friday arrested eight people on suspicion of people smuggling and falsifying documents, saying that the gang's leader had sworn loyalty to Islamic State.
The group of eight, made up exclusively of non-Italians, used fake contracts and payslips provided by a complicit textile company north of Naples to obtain work visas for irregular migrants, Carabinieri police said in a statement.
Heading up the alleged criminal gang was 41-year-old Mohamed Kamel Khemiri, a Tunisian man who had previously been arrested on drug smuggling charges. Khemiri had become a radical Islamist and is under investigation on terrorism charges, police said.
"As long as I live I will be an Islamic State man, and if I die I call on you to join," Khemiri said, speaking Arabic, on a telephone call recorded by police in January 2015, prosecutor Luigi Alberto Cannavale told reporters.
Khemiri became more and more radicalised over time, investigators said after scouring his internet and social media activity.
He celebrated when militants, who later were said to have acted on behalf of Islamic State (IS), conducted a series of planned attacks in Paris in November that killed 130 people, police said.
"This investigation demonstrates that there is a risk that people close to jihadists can also control people smuggling operations," Franco Roberti, Italy's top anti-terrorism prosecutor, told AGI news agency.
On Wednesday, Italy said it is investigating whether IS is involved in organizing the passage of tens of thousands of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.
More than 420,000 migrants have reached Italy by sea from North Africa since the start of 2014.
(Reporting by Steve Scherer)
Received on Fri Aug 05 2016 - 10:46:53 EDT