(Image source from: Terrorist scare on Vatican})

Italy dismantled an alleged Islamist terrorist network with links to al-Qa'ida, claiming that the extremists had planned to attack the Vatican. Italian authorities said the network included two men who were bodyguards of Osama bin Laden before he was killed in a raid by US Special Forces in Pakistan in 2011. Investigators said the suspects belonged to "an organisation dedicated to transnational criminal activities inspired by al-Qa'ida and other radical organisations, pursuing armed struggle against the West and insurrection against the current government of Pakistan". The principal members of the network were allegedly Khan Sultan Wali, a shopkeeper and long-term resident of the Sardinian port of Olbia, and an unidentified imam who lived in Brescia in northern Italy.

Police intercepted telephone conversations between the suspects which gave "signals of some preparation for a possible attack" against the Holy Se. In the wiretaps, the suspects discussed launching "a big jihad in Italy", said Mario Carta, a senior police officer. They also used the word "baba” a possible reference to the Pope. The extremist network has been planning to launch a suicide bomb attack against the Vatican in 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI was head of the Roman Catholic Church, said Mauro Mura, a prosecutor in Cagliari, Sardinia.

By Premji