U.S.

Italy: Cops Thwart Terror Attack

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 20, 2002 / 10:49 AM EST / CBS

Italian police have arrested four Moroccans suspected of planning an attack in Rome. Officials said they had maps showing the city water supply and the U.S. Embassy and a substance apparently containing small quantities of cyanide.

Officials said originally that the substance was cyanide and suggested that the suspects might have been planning to pour it into Rome's aqueducts. However, analysis showed the chemical was a form of potassium ferrocyanide, which is used in gardening.

"If this substance had been put in the water network it appears that it would not have been capable of causing any damage whatsoever," said Emilio del Mese, a top government official in Rome.

The Italian media was full of speculation about the case and the suspects.

The AGI news agency said the men were part of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, a dissident faction of the Armed Islamic Group, Algeria's most radical insurgent group.

Other reports linked at least one of the suspects to a terrorist cell in Milan suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The cell was dismantled last year with the arrest of seven Tunisians, who are now on trial in Milan. In wiretapped phone conversations, the Tunisians appeared to be speaking in code about cyanide.

Officials refused to comment on most of the reports. Chief Prosecutor Salvatore Vecchione, who said his office was investigating the leaks, refused to go beyond confirming the arrests and the discovery of maps, false documents and the chemical substance.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports the apparently foiled plot to attack the embassy is another indication that al Qaeda or al Qaeda sympathizers are still active despite U.S. efforts.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, giving a pep talk to security troops at the Salt Lake Olympics Wednesday, said terrorist were having a tougher time recruiting and funding their operations.

"We've got them on the run. All across the globe, they are not doing well," he said.

Intelligence experts, pointing to, among other things, the arrest of three al Qaeda suspects in Turkey, do not share Secretary Rumsfeld's optimism. The Turks say the suspects were suicide bombers on their way to Israel.

"There is every evidence that they are continuing to recruit around the world. There has been, and I think we can't ignore that. There's a ground swell of grass roots support for al Qaeda amongst many Islamic communities," said Alex Standish of Jane's Intelligence Digest.

News reports said the maps showed the city's water supply, along with the embassy.

"They had the U.S. Embassy circled and I don't think they were planning to pick up tourist brochures," said a source familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher commended Italy's police work.

"Because of their ongoing commitment to countering the terrorist threat, Italian authoritiehave repeatedly thwarted planned terrorist attacks against American and other targets inside Italy," he said.

A terrorist threat closed the embassy for three days in January 2001, the first closure in about a decade. Boucher said no closure is expected because of Tuesday's arrests. "At this point we don't see an immediate threat to the embassy or embassy employees," he said.

Tuesday's pre-dawn raid was described as the biggest probe so far into suspected Islamic terrorist activity in the city. Three other Moroccans were arrested in the capital last week as part of the same investigation, reports said.

Italy entered the spotlight in the fight against bin Laden after U.S. investigators said they believed Milan's Islamic cultural center was al Qaeda's main European logistics base. Muslim leaders in Italy have denied the charge.

Italy has arrested 20 people suspected of links to extremist Islamic groups since September 11 and has frozen about $302 million in assets.