Italian authorities said they launched a “vast anti-terrorism operation” Friday, going after suspects associated with al Qaeda who had discussed a list of targets, including the Vatican.
Some members of the terror cell even had direct contact with Osama bin Laden before his 2011 death in Pakistan, Italy’s state-run ANSA news agency reported. Police said they got this information from wiretaps.
Wiretaps and other intelligence revealed the group’s plans to carry out terror attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Italy, according to Caligari Chief Prosecutor Mauro Mura.
Some evidence indicated the Vatican was among the targets being considered. This talk happened in March 2010, around the time a possible suicide bomber from Afghanistan had entered Italy, Mura said.
The suspects had been under surveillance for years, some as far back as 2005.
On Friday, the Italian State Police decided to close in by carrying out raids in seven provinces in what it called a first-of-its-kind operation. One of the raids focused on the alleged terror cell’s headquarters on the island of Sardinia.
Operation expected to net 18 arrests
The operation, which is still going on, is expected to result in the arrest of 18 people, most of them from Pakistan, said spokesman Paolo Meloni, who represents the police in Sassari, Sardinia, where the investigation is being coordinated.
Meloni said the provinces in which the raids are being carried out include Frosinone and Macerata, which are in central Italy, as well as Bergamo, which is in the north.
Some of those expected to be arrested are suspected of having been involved in a market massacre in Pakistan in 2009, Meloni said.
Still others are suspected of involvement in migrant trafficking, he said.