Italy Targeted By Recruiters For Terrorists
Attacks Tied to New Alliance

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A35

MILAN -- Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic underground organization based in Iraq, and al Qaeda have joined forces to recruit Arab volunteers in Europe to fight the United States and its allies in Iraq, according to Italian investigators.

A suicide bomber from Italy helped carry out the attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August, the officials said. Another recruit from Italy was involved in a rocket attack on the city's al-Rashid Hotel in October.

Precisely how foreign fighters have been able to enter Iraq has been one of the big mysteries of the guerrilla campaign against occupation forces. Investigations in Italy suggest that Ansar and al Qaeda set up a pipeline that flows from here to Syria and then into the Sunni Triangle region of central Iraq, where some of the fiercest and most persistent attacks have occurred.

Recruitment goes on in several other European countries as well, including Germany, Norway and Spain, they added.

Italian authorities do not regard these activities as having been directed by former president Saddam Hussein, who was seized by U.S. troops on Saturday. Rather, the recruits appear to be a part of a loose network that is dedicated to attacking the United States and its supporters wherever possible.

The recruitment reflects a shift in Italy's long-standing role as a staging ground for terrorist groups, investigators in Milan contend. Previously, Italian territory was used only to provide false documents and as a transit point for militants from elsewhere traveling to and from the Middle East.

Italy's false-document industry made the country a natural place to recruit and dispatch volunteers, the investigators said. Several militant underground Islamic groups -- comparable in size and sophistication to groups in France, Germany and Britain -- have been uncovered since 2001.

Italian officials worry about threats to security in Italy, which sent troops to Iraq after the capture of Baghdad to help the United States and Britain pacify the country. "One can't definitely exclude the possibility that these violent actions would be directed against objectives in Italy," Milan prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso recently told Panorama magazine.

In connection with the Ansar-al Qaeda network, the Italian police detained a Tunisian and a Moroccan last month on charges of providing false documents to terrorist recruits. At about the same time, German authorities captured an Algerian member of al Qaeda who officials say worked with the Ansar cell in Italy. All three suspects are in custody pending trial.

Ansar began its journey to center stage in Iraq in 2001 when armed fugitives fleeing the U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan took refuge in Kurdish camps along the Iraqi border with Iran, U.S and Italian officials believe. The fugitives belonged to al Qaeda as well as the fundamentalist Taliban movement.

In March of this year, U.S. Special Operations officers directed an assault on the mountain redoubts, with a pro-American militia, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, providing the foot soldiers. Most of the 1,000 militants in the area were dispersed, but not killed or captured.

The importance of Ansar's activities in Iraq has gradually become clear. U.S. military intelligence officials in Mosul have reported that Ansar provides guide services and expertise in bombmaking to foreign infiltrators. An Ansar member helped organize last month's deadly truck bombing of the Italian forces' headquarters in Nasiriyah, Italian intelligence officials reported.

"They can keep the bad guys from taking a wrong turn," said a U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq.

Ansar recruitment activities and planning for anti-U.S. attacks began in advance of the war, Italian investigators say.

Some of the richest evidence of the group's operations has come from Italian intercepts of the cell and satellite phone calls of Mohammed Majid, an Iraqi Kurd. Also known as Mullah Fouad, he was a key Ansar organizer in Italy, according to documents provided by Italian investigators. A longtime resident of Parma, he fled to Syria a year ago when he heard Italian police were looking for him.

From Syria, he continued to help control the pipeline. In a phone conversation recorded by the Italians last March, at about the time that the U.S. invasion was beginning, Majid ordered a follower in Milan to send suicide bombers to him, officials here say. He asked for "people who strike the ground and bring up iron," according to a transcript of the conversation examined by a reporter.

He said he was looking for "people who were in Japan," a statement that investigators called a coded reference to kamikazes.

Majid has visited Italy secretly at least once during the past year and continues to arrange trips for Arab volunteers from Europe, the investigators say.

Investigators say they have found a pattern of meetings between Ansar and al Qaeda members. Last spring in Italy, Majid met with Abderrazak Mahdjoub, an Algerian and alleged member of al Qaeda, to coordinate recruitment and to arrange a visit to Italy by an al Qaeda operative named Chise Mohammed, investigators report.

The role of Chise, a Somali, was to provide al Qaeda operatives in Europe with funds that had been sent from Arab countries through Britain, according to Italian investigators. The Italians arrested Chise last spring on charges of belonging to a terrorist group. Authorities in Hamburg detained Mahdjoub on Nov. 28.

One of Majid's main contacts in Italy was Mohammed Tahir Hamid, another Kurdish resident of Parma. He was arrested last March. On Oct. 29, he outlined Ansar activities in Italy for interrogators.

An Egyptian named Radi Ayashi, an al Qaeda member, helped direct recruitment in a Milan mosque, investigators said. The recruits were trained at a camp near the northeastern Iraqi town of Tawel. "I personally was in charge of helping some persons go to Syria and then get to the camps in [Iraqi] Kurdistan," Hamid said, according to an affidavit.

Italian investigators and U.S. intelligence officials in Iraq say that Abu Musab Zarqawi, another alleged al Qaeda leader and associate of Osama bin Laden, has forged a working relationship with Ansar in Iraq.

Last June, informers for the Americans spotted Zarqawi in Mosul, Iraq, where Ansar was working to set up a resistance force on his behalf. Italian investigators say that a satellite phone used by Zarqawi was also used by Ansar agents to contact recruiters in Italy.

Italian identity papers discovered by U.S. troops who raided an Ansar training camp last March independently confirmed an earlier Italian connection, investigators here said.

Ansar grew out of a history of factionalism and infighting among Kurdish Islamists. In the 1980s, various Kurdish Islamic groups split and reunited. Sometimes they fought the Hussein government, sometimes secular Kurdish parties that opposed Hussein. The groups all promoted independence for Kurds in northern Iraq under rule by Islamic law.

In September 2001, fractious Kurdish Islamic organizations merged into a single unit called Jund al-Islam, or Soldiers of Islam. A few months later, under the guidance of a Kurdish cleric, Mullah Krekar, it changed its name to Ansar al-Islam, or Supporters of Islam.