August 25,
2005
Do Jihadists in Europe Have a New Target?
Do jihadists in Europe have a new target? The Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale, which is owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has released two troubling reports this week that have gone virtually unnoticed by the Western press. On August 22nd, Il Giornale reported that a well-known Iraqi terrorist, Abu Abdelrahman al-Jazaeri, is planning to carry out a major attack on Italian soil. He's reportedly taking orders from the Iraq-based terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and is en route to Italy after having passed through Saudi Arabia. How real are these claims? We can't know for certain. And that's exactly why we should take notice. Here is an excerpt from the article, translated into English by FBIS:
The general public knows very little about this Al-Qa'ida big fish that the Americans have been trying to land for months. For the experts, instead, he is an essential pawn on the chessboard of the Iraqi guerrilla, and previously of the Afghan "resistance." On the strength of classified information, the terrorist is alleged to have on his conscience the lives of a goodly number of US soldiers, having organized and directed militia raids sponsored by bin Ladin in the Iraqi city of Rawoh. He is considered to be extremely dangerous because of his close contacts with top-ranking worldwide terrorists.
Scary stuff, to say the least. But an article in the August 23rd edition of Il Giornale may have been even more frightening. It reported that four suicide bombers acting on behalf of--you guessed it, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi once again may have already arrived in Europe, where they plan to carry out suicide attacks in Italy and the Netherlands. The foursome is reportedly comprised of a Syrian, a Pakistani, and two Bengalese brothers. Here's more about them from Il Giornale:
Intelligence sources report of their having recently been localized in Saudi Arabia, of their military indoctrination at two well-known camps run by Usama [Bin Laden's] criminal organization, and of their rapid passage through some of the "sites" of Salafiyya fundamentalism. Since late July, however, all traces of this deadly foursome seem to have been lost. No one knows what has become of terrorist Adnan al-Moussain, originally from Damascus, the Pakistani Mohammad Nadir, and the two apparently unlikely Bengalese: Husayn Delower and Husayn Karimal.
Ominous. And notice how all five terrorists have apparently "passed through" the territory of our supposed good friend and ally Saudi Arabia. But these reported threats, against Italy in particular, should come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. I'll have more as this develops.
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