-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded message follows -------
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 29 2001 http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001330021- 2001335716,00.html The Times (U.K.) FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME ITALY’S secret services told US and British intelligence in July that Tony Blair and President Bush were the targets of an Islamic terrorist plot to assassinate them, from the air, at the Genoa G8 summit. They believe that a further 30 attacks, including “some form of airborne assault”, are still planned against London and other Western capitals. A report by SISDE, Italy’s equivalent of MI5, warned its counterparts in London, Washington and European capitals that Osama bin Laden had devised a plan to attack the Genoa summit with the specific aim of killing Mr Bush and Mr Blair, according to the newspaper La Repubblica yesterday. “His target was and is the Anglo-American alliance above all,” one intelligence source said. La Repubblica said that the report, sent to SISDE’s Western counterparts and all Italian anti-terrorist units on July 6, two weeks before the summit, contained “many details not only of what actually happened on September 11, but also of what may happen in the US and in Europe”. It said that Italy had been one of the first countries to focus on the terrorist threat because of security fears before Genoa. The Italian assessment had not been given sufficient attention by other Western nations in the two months between Genoa and the attacks in America. Italian officials said they could confirm that the deployment in Genoa of special forces, radar and anti-aircraft missiles had not just been a reaction to the violent antiglobalisation protests. President Mubarak of Egypt confirmed this week that there had been intelligence warnings of an airborne threat at Genoa, although “no one had imagined this might take the form of Boeings full of passengers slamming into buildings”. It is not clear why the Genoa plot was abandoned. Gianfranco Fini, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that many people had scoffed at Italian security measures at Genoa as melodramatic, “but perhaps those people will now reflect”. La Repubblica quoted intelligence sources as saying that they had been tipped off originally that bin Laden was seeking to develop “some kind of plane or airborne device” which could avoid detection by radar and could thus be used to evade anti-aircraft defences and attack Genoa, and subsequently Western capitals. It said that the under-valued report had stated that the terrorists meant to strike US and British targets “including the American and British capitals”. This phrase in the SISDE report had been in bold type and underlined. Italian anti-terrorism experts agreed that it seemed unlikely that bin Laden ’s organisation could have developed a radar-invisible device or aircraft. But they said that Italy’s information was that he still had more than 60 suicide terrorists in the West. They claimed that there were as many as 1,200 members of al-Qaeda, the bin Laden terrorist network, in Britain alone. Since September 11, Italian police have arrested dozens of suspected terrorists in Rome, Milan, Turin, Cagliari and Bari and raided mosques and Islamic foundations suspected of using charities as a cover for fundraising for terrorists. Police said that a Syrian suspect held in Sardinia, named as Hassaim Lailed, had taken part in a machine-gun attack on the British Airways office in Rome 18 years ago, when he was 17. He had been deported after a jail sentence, but had re-entered Italy illegally. When arrested at Nuoro he had been wearing a T-shirt with an image of bin Laden on it. According to the Italian assessments, the attacks in the US were part of an enormous terrorist operation which includes planned outrages against Italy and the Vatican. The Pope returned yesterday after a tour of Kazakhstan and Armenia, during which he appealed for peace and the avoidance of “catastrophic bloodshed”, but also condemned terrorism. Police are on high alert for tomorrow’s Mass at St Peter’s Basilica. Italian officials say that the country has been in the forefront of the fight against terrorism, not least during the 1970s and 1980s when the Red Brigades engaged in murder and kidnapping. Italian experience in anti-terrorism and the monitoring of illegal immigrants was being put at the disposal of the global coalition. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard terms and conditions. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website. ------- End of forwarded message ------- -- Best wishes War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you. - G.K. 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