Enemies are by now in our midst: we precisely know neither their number, nor their hiding place nor what they are organizing, but there are no doubts whatsoever concerning their existence. According to an estimate made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 50 thousand of the one million Muslims living in our country regularly attend mosques. In a fair number of these places of worship they only pray, socialize and conduct small business transactions.
But other mosques regularly preach hatred against the industrialized world and the Jihad against the United States, Israel and its allies. They evoke fundamentalist Islamism, which wants conflict between cultures at all costs.
There are recordings of sermons that extol the martyrdom of Palestinians who massacre Israeli civilians. There is also evidence of many cases of “takfir”, a sentence for apostasy against those faithful who do not sympathize with radical and violent theories. Besides, many mosques try to enrol new followers for Al Qaeda and associated organizations; they provide protection, documents and assistance to terrorists passing through our country and they collect money, even resorting to none too veiled forms of intimidation, to feed the network of terror. Some imams who preside over this mortal game have already been arrested. Others too will follow the same fate as investigations proceed.
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Pisanu, has assured that, while the government is anxious to open a dialogue with moderate Muslims to try and integrate them in our country, even by forming an Islamic Council to voice their problems and their needs, mosques that become centres of subversion will be inexorably closed. But this is easier said than done: often, as in the typical case of the mosque in via Jenner, Milan, many years pass before the authorities can ascertain these centres’ real activities and adopt the necessary measures.
Besides when a cell is discovered and some of its members are arrested, slow legal procedures and the equal protection of the laws enable suspects to be back in circulation, leave the country or even return to their criminal activities in another area and under another name. Many individuals related with Al Qaeda leaders and considered extremely dangerous, who made use of irreproachable covers while in Italy, have succeeded in escaping and are now phantoms that loom over us. Proof of these connections is that nine of the six hundred convicts in the Guantanamo camp, who were captured in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban government, had spent long stays in our country and that some Al Ansar leaders are of Italian origin.
This organization is bound to Al Qaeda and was based in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is now suspected of being behind many attacks against Anglo-American troops.
Many other Muslims resident in Italy have fought with the Muslim units in Bosnia to then return to base. Despite unavoidable gaps, we must admit that Italy has reacted rapidly and effectively to the terrorist threat, adjusting, in a short time, its legislative system to the new situation that has taken shape after September 11.
Thus doing, we have been able to exploit the experience gained in years of confrontation with internal terrorism and with the mafia: these critical moments forced us to face, before others, the issue placed by the need to safeguard democratic legality without questioning its founding principles. This has enabled us to re-examine Penal Code provisions and, more in general, the provisions of the entire prescriptive and regulatory system without having to face a preliminary debate on the borderline between effective repression and guaranteed democracy. Hence Italy’s movements have been more agile than most of its partners, creating a pattern that others have already adopted as a model. Besides, in Law No. 438/2001 we adopted measures to prevent and fight the new phenomenon by introducing the new crime of criminal association targeted at international terrorism.
This enables the en masse charge of groups suspected of joining Al Qaeda. This regulation enables investigating authorities the use of tools such as preventive and judicial interceptions or delayed warrants of arrest, which were so far used only for a special types of crime.
Another almost contemporary law formed the Financial Safety Committee, an essential tool, which can decree that property belonging to people and terrorist organizations be frozen, as per duties undertaken at the United Nations and at the European Union. The result has so far been quite satisfactory in the sense that Islamic terrorism has not succeeded in carrying out sensational actions in our country. In some cases, the authorities succeeded in destroying activist cells before they started acting, while in other cases they checked the plans of terrorists during the operations phase, as when three Egyptians with the baggage compartment of their car full of explosives were arrested in Anzio or the attempt to attack the American embassy in Rome with gas introduced through the drains.
At times our police have also been over zealous, as when they arrested five young Maghrebis on a sightseeing expedition in Bologna while they were photographing a fresco of Prophet Mohammed in the mist of the flames of hell in a church the police had marked out as a possible target for an attack. Exemplary and frequent collaboration of citizens with the police was also recorded under the emotional effect of September 11 and of various other suicide attacks that numbered hundreds of dead throughout the world: when one realizes he is risking his own skin, even the man on the street will keep his eyes open and inform the police if he sees an unusual situation.
However absurd it may seem, this does not apply to all: in certain extreme left wing environments, both Marxist and No Global, there is a long standing principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, to the point that a secret understanding concerning operations is taking shape, yet at an early stage, between the Red Brigade, the Nuclei Proletari per il Comunismo [proletarian groups for Communism] and other groups and fundamentalist terrorist organizations: contacts between members of the two groups have taken place in prisons and the Red Brigade terrorist Desdemona Lioce, who was captured during the famous gunfight on the train, theorized in his paper “an alliance between the urban proletariat and Muslim immigrants to form an anti-imperialist front”.
A rather peculiar understanding, if we consider the ideological chasm existing between the two groups! However for now we could say that Islamic terrorists have not considered our country a primary target, despite the presence of the Vatican, the political support our government gave the United States concerning war against Iraq and the mention of Italy in a presumed radio announcement made by Bin Laden to his followers and broadcasted by the Al Jazeera television. The many fundamentalist bases discovered in Milan, Naples, Rome, Bologna, Cremona, Varese, Reggio Emilia and yet other cities were mainly used to provide support for projects concerning other European nations and especially to forge false documents, rather than to organize attacks in the peninsula. But things could change at any time, even coinciding with the arrival, as illegal immigrants or even with a legal residence permit, of other elements closely related with terrorist organizations and with different instructions from North Africa or from the Middle East.
Italy’s geographical location and the need, based on humanitarian reasons, to however enable illegal immigrants arriving by sea to step on land and even ask for political asylum makes closing the borders to unwelcome elements extremely difficult. For this reason and due to the greater exposure of our country as a European ally of the United States on the international scene, the alarm is always set very high. Stricter safety measures have been enforced in airports, ports and main railway stations. Targets considered to be most at risk are constantly watched, even with the collaboration of the army. Secret agents have been wormed into the most suspicious environments. The experience of other European countries, especially Great Britain and France, has taught us that it does not suffice to keep immigrants under control, but that Italians too who have been converted to Islam can represent a threat, as they are often more fanatic and uncompromising.
Many North Africans who have lived in our midst for many years, have a more or less regular job and are even married to an Italian in order to have a better cover paradoxically represent a special danger. These generally belong to the Algerian GIA, which already distinguished itself for its extreme cruelty during the ‘90s civil war, or to the Salafite group based on preaching and fighting.
This group was formed even before Al Qaeda. A great effort is especially being made to identify Al Qaeda’s “dormant cells” that were formed at a time when there was greater tolerance and, as in the Algerian case, when fundamentalists fighting against their respective governments were even granted political asylum. On the other hand there is no reason to hide from the fact that however high the threshold of surveillance, it would be impossible to guarantee total safety should there be an organized terrorist attack. Possible targets are on the other hand so many (the Ministry of Internal Affairs has identified eight thousand, but in practice they are many more) and the types of attack are so many, especially on the part of terrorists who are ready to sacrifice their lives, that it is absolutely impossible to organize 24-hour protection for everyone and everything.
Besides targets located in the national territory, there are foreign ones too, which range from our troops in Iraq or in Afghanistan to diplomatic, cultural and business delegations throughout the world. When a terrorist attack does not aim at destroying a special target, but just any target, at killing one or more special individuals, but simply at a massacre, as occurred in Bali or in Casablanca, it is obvious that a wide range defence becomes impossible. Hence focus is on prevention, in other words on the recognition and arrest of potential terrorists before they start acting.
To this end an effective coordination between all nations fighting against Al Qaeda and its many related organizations has become essential: luckily the globalization of international Islamic terrorism along with greater penetrability or the removal of borders between States has made even countries that are jealous of the work performed by their secret services and are more reluctant to inform others of their results, accept the need for closer cooperation than before September 11.
This applies to industrialized nations that are already used to working together in various institutions and also to others with whose secret services relations have been historically antagonistic, like Russia and (on at least two occasions) even China. This development is because national and collective interest coincide in this sector, in other words because many governments have realized that those who operate today against the nation X can turn tomorrow against the nation Y: they are, in other words, the absolute enemy, the criminal sans frontières that must be stopped at any cost.
The need to constantly share information at an international level has no doubt spurred Italian secret services to greater action, contributing at the same time to increase their esteem in the eyes of public opinion accustomed to years of left wing propaganda that considered them “deviated” and dangerous. Now that the enemy is in our homeland, even the legendary housewife of Voghera realizes the usefulness of “spies” in preventing attacks that can even have her as a target. Though limited by inadequate funds, the State is trying to equip itself to face the new challenge: for example Arabic courses have already been organized for policemen appointed to investigate international terrorism, because it is essential for authorized personnel, who understand even the overtones of the language without resorting to the mediation of interpreters who are not always very reliable, to listen in real time to extremely delicate telephone and environmental interceptions.
Monographic workshops on Islamism were even organized at the police school of specialization because – as the undersecretary Mantovano said – “an executive faced with the problem of what to do in a mosque from which there emerge dangerous elements must in the first place know what a mosque is and what it represents besides a place of worship and prayer”. This effort has on the one hand given important results and on the other it has increased our allies’ esteem for us. It is thanks to the work of the special task force of the Carabinieri [Italian Military Corps with civil police duties], for example, that some Islamic terrorist groups, of whose existence even the American services were unaware, were identified.
In the period 2002-2003, 105 individuals involved in Islamic terrorism were arrested in Italy. Departments that deal only with this issue were formed in major Public Prosecutors’ Offices.
But, as Bush said after September 11, it will be a long battle that will probably never have a complete victory: in fact, the last six-monthly report the secret services presented to Parliament literally states: “Islamic fundamentalism is the most serious threat for Italy’s safety”.

Translated by interpres sas