Josh's Weblog: Terrorists In Italy Arrested Due To Wiretap Evidence

Terrorists In Italy Arrested Due To Wiretap Evidence

NewsMax is carrying a story about 3 Algerian terrorists arrested in Italy who were planning major attacks in the United States. The story highlights the use of wiretap evidence:

Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S.

These attacks were aimed at shipping, railroads, and stadiums. Certainly juicy targets. The NewsMax story indicates that they intended to surpass 9/11 with a series of bombings.

Italian authorities stepped up their internal surveillance programs after July's terrorist bombings in London. Their domestic wiretaps picked up phone conversations by Algerian Yamine Bouhrama that discussed terrorist attacks in Italy and abroad.

Italian authorities arrested Bouhrama on November 15 and he remains in prison. Authorities later arrested two other men, Achour Rabah and Tartaq Sami, who are believed to be Bouhrama’s chief aides in planning the attacks.

They focus on a lack of coverage in the MSM, and allege conspiracy to hide this. A quick look around Google, however, came up with not much media coverage outside of the US either, unless it has already expired off of their radar (these arrests go back to mid-December). There certainly was some coverage, however:

“The European terrorist Union : Three terrorists arrrested in Italy ‘ready to strike’ had been staying in France and Norway”, Militant Islam Monitor
“Three terror warrants served against Algerian suspects”, The Muslim News
“Italy: Algerian Suspects Allegedly Planning to Kill 10,000”, adnkronosinternational
“Italy Arrests Three Algerian Suspected Terrorists”, Voice of America

Could it be that a December 23rd story could disappear from most high volume news sites? The NewsMax article indicates that the Associated Press did have an article, omitting details about the wiretap, but did not include a citation. If anyone has a link to the AP article, please link to it in a comment. I certainly have a low opinion of the AP but I want to see if they really omitted wiretapping from this story or not.

Josh Poulson

Posted Friday, Jan 6 2006 09:23 AM