Rome, Italy - Police arrested an Italian man Monday in a crackdown in several Italian cities on an Islamic extremist network suspected of supporting international terrorism.
Alfonso Polverino, an anti-terrorism police official in Cagliari, Sardinia, said the man was arrested in Pesaro, an Adriatic sea town. Polverino told Sky TG24 TV that the man was suspected of training Islamic extremists.
Authorities at a news conference in Cagliari identified the man as Andrea Campione, a 28-year-old worker at a frame factory in Pesaro who had converted to Islam. Campione is said to have a Moroccan girlfriend and was reportedly about to travel to Morocco.
Monday’s operations grew out of the arrest in March in Brescia of a Moroccan suspected of plotting an attack against a Milan synagogue.
Police said they were searching for several suspects, including a Cagliari high school teacher who allegedly translated al-Qaida-inspired texts on the Internet. Training materials for extremists also included translation of manuals explaining how to build a bomb at home, officials at the news conference said.