Authorities were holding four Moroccan immigrants Wednesday who may have been planning a terror attack on the U.S. Embassy in Rome, police said.
In a raid on the men’s apartment in a Rome suburb, police found maps highlighting the location of the U.S. Embassy and diagrams of Rome’s water supply system as well as 10 pounds of a chemical substance containing cyanide. The chemical, potassium ferrocyanide, would not have posed a threat to the city’s water system.
The embassy, located in a former royal villa on Rome’s famed Via Veneto, came under threat of an attempted Al Qaeda terrorist attack a year ago.
The embassy was forced to close for a few days in January 2001 after U.S. intelligence picked up warning signs of a possible attack. Over the next 10 months, Italian police in Milan arrested seven Tunisian immigrants with alleged links to Al Qaeda who are believed to have been involved in the plot.
The seven are now being tried in Milan on charges of trafficking in false documents, violating immigration laws, and criminal association with the intent to obtain and transport weapons, explosives and chemicals.
“The Embassy of the United States of America compliments the Italian police and security forces for their excellent work concerning the most recent security threat,” said a statement issued by the embassy, which maintained a normal work schedule Wednesday.
Karyn Mullen-Posner, an embassy spokeswoman, said she had no information about any connection between Tuesday’s arrests and the earlier plot.
Police sources, however, confirmed that at least one of the Moroccans appears to have ties to the Milan group, whose activities were centered on a Milan mosque called the Islamic Cultural Institute.
The key figure in the Milan trial is Essid Sami Ben Khemais, 33, who police say provided important logistical support to the shadowy network of Al Qaeda cells that sprouted across Europe in the late 1990s.
Ben Khemais came to the attention of U.S. officials about two years ago, when intelligence sources warned that a man using the alias Omar al Muhajar was “joining a group of three Islamic extremists who were linked to the Osama bin Laden organization and, from Afghanistan, were planing vague actions against American targets in Italy,” according to court documents. Muhajar turned out to be Ben Khemais
Wiretap and listening device evidence presented in court this month indicated that Ben Khemais and his associates had a working familiarity with bombmaking techniques and crude chemical weapons.
The chemical found in Tuesday’s raid was identified as potassium ferrocyanide, which contains small quantities of cyanide.
Ferrocyanide, not nearly as deadly as cyanide, is used in the production of wine and ink dye, according to Luciano Caprino, a pharmacology professor as Rome’s La Sapienza University. He said small amounts of cyanide could be extracted from ferrocyanide, but that it is an extremely difficult procedure.
Cyanide, a water-soluble poison, can be turned into a chemical weapon.
According to Italian media reports, investigators believe the four suspects may have been planning to contaminate water supplies near the embassy, which is a busy commercial and tourist area.
