CORRIERE DELLA SERA, Milan
According to Germany’s intelligence services, Osama Bin Ladin, the Islamist extremist, has started to finance far-right groups throughout Europe in order for them to carry out attacks in Italy during the G8 summit meeting in the summer in Genoa, an Italian paper says. Gen Sabato Palazzo, head of the Carabinieri’s Special Operations Section, has said that the threat should be taken seriously and that fringe groups who do not want the event to take place are being monitored. The following is the text of a report by Antonietta Calabro, “Osama funding neo-Nazis against G8 summit”, by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on 14 February:
Rome: A red alert over the G8 summit in Genoa has come in the last few hours from Germany. According to information in the hands of Germany’s intelligence services, Osama Bin Ladin, the king maker of Islamic terrorism, has started to finance Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe, in order for them to carry out attacks and acts of violence in Italy during the summit of heads of states and heads of government which is to be held in five months time in the regional capital of Liguria Genoa . The report, which has already received initial confirmation, came to light during preparations for an international conference on terrorism and intelligence prospects for the 21st century, organized by the CeAS (Centre for High-Level Studies in the Fight Against Terrorism and Political Violence) which is to be attended by, among others, the chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, the head of the analysis department of the BND (Germany’s counter-espionage service), and Prof Christofer Andrew spelling as published , author of the ‘Mitrokhin Archive’.
The information coming in from Berlin points to one thing, and one thing only: people who want to gain a global audience for some sensational act have come (with significant funding) to add their presence to the spontaneous protesters against globalization. Former Senator Maurizio Calvi, chairman of the CeAS, claims that “in this context, there are serious grounds for concern over the imminent G8 meeting”. According to Calvi, the G8 would function as a catalyst “for many grey areas, given that the attentions’ not only of the so-called Seattle people, but also of various subversive groups backed by the European economic Right, seem to be converging on the summit. In this, their intentions are in line with the Islamic groups which identify themselves with the organization of Osama, albeit on a fortuitous and contingent basis, but it is no less potentially dangerous for all that”.
Is Italy ready to face up to this challenge? In the view of Gen Sabato Palazzo, head of the Special Operations Section ROS of the Carabinieri: “We ought indeed to be concerned by the form of international terrorism which is headed up by Bin Laden.” He said this at the end of January, during a secret appearance before the parliamentary atrocities committee chaired by Giovanni Pellegrino. Palazzo added: “They will shortly be involved on the occasion of the G8 summit: We are of course taking a hand, and we are monitoring those fringe groups who do not want this event to take place, and who fight against globalisation.” Palazzo cited the example of the “Tacfir Islamic fundamentalist force, which had cells in Italy, especially in Naples, Milan, Bassano del Grappa, and Turin, and which was linked to other cells in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and France”, and he claimed that “the danger of these groups lies in the fact that they can be used, seeing as how they constitute logistical bases in our country, by someone like Bin Laden”. Why? According to Palazzo “these are people who need money to fund the war in their own countries, and Bin Laden is wealthy”.
The deputy chief of the ROS, Col Giampaolo Ganzer, in reply to questions from deputies and senators, added: “We have established that cells exist, linked to the Jihad of Hassaladdab, which is the most dangerous element in connection with plans for the unification of the North African fringe groups, and that they have installed themselves, in some shape or form, in Italy and in Europe. These groups could be used by Bin Laden himself, who is linked to Hassaladdab. There is a link with Bin Laden: it is like a criminal who needs a man on the inside to carry out a robbery.”
Two weeks before, again before the parliamentary body, the stand-in deputy chief of state police, Ansoino Andreassi, had said: “Today, foreign terrorism is transnational, rather than international, in the sense that it crosses over more than one country, transversally.” How do they take action? “An attack is carried out by individuals who arrive on the scene from another country, and make off immediately after the episode; the rehearsal and trial phase is also almost always conceived and tried out in countries that are different from those in which the action is to take place.” Andreassi also added a piece of information which heightens the risk for Italy: some groups which support the Red Brigades, the NTA (Anti-Imperialist Territorial Nuclei), “also sing the praises of Osama Bin Laden, who very likely, if he reads this document, will do nothing but smile.
But this is an actual fact: Bin Laden is lauded as a champion of anti-imperialism.”
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