Rome (AFP) - Police on Thursday
announced a swoop on a European jihadist network that was allegedly
planning to kidnap diplomats and carry out attacks to try to spring its
leader out of detention in Norway.
Seventeen
arrest warrants were issued and 13 people were detained in Italy,
Britain and Norway, according to Eurojust, the EU's Judicial Cooperation
Unit.
The other wanted
suspects were believed to be fighting in Iraq or Syria for the Islamic
State (IS) group, according to Italian police, who lead the operation.
Investigators
said the network was trying to free Norway-based fundamentalist
preacher Najmuddin Ahmad Faraj -- also known as Mullah Krekar -- who is
listed as a terrorist by the United States and United Nations.
Krekar
has been serving time since 2012, apart from a brief period at the
beginning of this year. He was freed in January after completing his
sentence for intimidation and death threats, but rearrested at the end
of February for inciting crime.
Giuseppe
Governale of the Italian police's Special Operations Group told
journalists the operation had "dismantled an integrated cell that
included -- in addition to Italy -- Britain, Norway, Finland,
Switzerland and Germany".
The sting on the cell,
which was "affiliated with IS", was "the most important police operation
in Europe in the last twenty years".
- 'Kidnappings, attacks plotted' -
The
network developed "on the 'dark web', little-known (Internet) platforms
that we have managed to penetrate," Governale said, adding that the
swoop has allowed police to scupper "a process of recruitment, of
sending (fighters) into combat abroad".
Governale
said the network "was about to continue sending many other jihadists
abroad; it was about to carry out attacks, including suicide bombings,
to try to free their chief, Mullah Krekar".
They
were planning "attacks against Norwegian and British diplomats in the
Middle East", including "kidnappings to allow them to negotiate Krekar's
release in exchange for prisoners", as well as attacks on "members of
parliament in Norway".
The 59-year-old Krekar, a
Kurdish Iraqi, has been living in Norway since 1991. He has been at risk
of deportation since 2003 after Norwegian authorities ordered him to be
expelled as a threat to national security.
He
has been accused of inciting racial hatred and is renowned for
inflammatory statements, including declaring Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama
Bin Laden "a good Muslim" and comparing former American president George
Bush to Adolf Hitler.
While courts upheld the expulsion ruling, Norwegian law bars him from being deported to Iraq, where he risks the death penalty.
- 'Preaching on the web' -
Krekar's lawyer Brynjar Meling said his client was innocent and had been in prison without Internet access for four years. He said he would fight any extradition attempt and any appeal process would take "between two and three years".
Italy said Krekar had "moved from preaching on the ground to preaching on the web".
British police confirmed their counter terrorism units had arrested three men in their 30s and a 52-year-old from four separate locations in the Midlands and north east of the country as part of the sting.
The four, seized under European arrest warrants, were due to appear in a London court.
Italy
said the arrests were the culmination of an investigation dubbed "Jweb"
launched in 2010 after the discovery of a website called "jarchive",
which contained material related to Al-Qaeda and its affiliate
organisations.
A probe led
first to Kurdish Iraqi Abdul Rahman Nauroz, who visited the site and
showed "clear signs of radicalisation", after which investigators
wire-tapped his phone and discovered a network of people headed by
Krekar.
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