Italian Police Target Suspected Extremists

Counter-terrorism and paramilitary police swept across Italy on Wednesday in dozens of raids targeting suspected Islamic militants in their homes and workplaces.

By late afternoon, police armed with 200 search warrants had confiscated documents and other materials and questioned 174 people, but no arrests were reported. The raids were concentrated in the north around Milan and Turin, an area where radical Islam thrives, but extended as far south as Naples and Sicily.

Authorities were expected to use the operation to expel a number of radical imams or Muslim immigrants, sources in Milan said.

Last week, in the 48 hours after the London bombing, Italian authorities arrested 142 people, mostly North African immigrants without proper residency permits.

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Wednesday’s raids had been planned for days but were made more urgent by the events in London. “It’s a preventive operation in high-risk environments,” Pisanu said.

Later Wednesday, a judge in Brescia, about 60 miles east of Milan, convicted two North Africans of belonging to an extremist cell alleged to have planned attacks against Milan’s subway and a 12th century cathedral in a nearby northern city, among other locations.

A third suspect was convicted of a lesser charge, and a fourth was acquitted. All defendants denied the charges, and those found guilty will probably appeal.

Moroccan Mohammed Rafik was sentenced to four years, eight months in prison and Tunisian Kamel Hamraoui to three years, four months.

Tunisian Najib Rouass was sentenced to a year and two months on the lesser charge of inciting violence, and Tunisian Romdhane Ben Othmane Khir was acquitted.