Italian Terror Raid Busts Cell With Alleged Bin Laden Link

[Valin]

NBC News:

Apr. 24 2015

 

ROME — Italian police busted an al Qaeda-inspired terror network with possible ties to Osama Bin Laden that planned an attack on the Vatican and financed terror operations in Pakistan, officials said Friday.

 

Counterterrorism officials said a vast operation had dismantled a "very well-structured terrorist network" composed of Pakistani and Afghan nationals that had been operating out of Italy's Mediterranean island of Sardinia since 2005.

 

"This was one of the most important operations we ever conducted," Mario Carta, the counter-terror police official leading the raids, told NBC News. "We are talking people with connections with al Qaeda at the highest level."

 

Two members of the cell were believed to have been close aides to Bin Laden and protected the terror leader in hiding, according to Carta, who said some of the suspects arrested also were believed to be involved in a 2009 bombing on a Peshawar market which killed more than 100 people.

 

(Snip)

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

H/T Hot Air

[Valin]