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Europe
Italy: Focus - Police probe possible links in attacks on Islamic targets
2007-08-16
Milan, 16 August (AKI) - (by Hamza Boccolini) - Italian anti-terrorist police in Milan are investigating whether six attacks on Muslim targets in northern Italy over the past five months are linked - a concern expressed by some of the country's main Muslim representatives.

In the latest attack on Wednesday night, two petrol bombs exploded near a mosque in the northern industrial city of Brescia, where many immigrants including Muslims, live and work. No one was hurt in the attack which was similar to an incident on 7 August when two petrol bombs were hurled at an Islamic centre in Segrate near Milan. No one was injured in the attack but a car owned by a prayer leader and part of the building housing the centre were damaged.

"We're living in a climate of hate which has been unleashed by continuous claims that mosques are the dens of terrorists", Segrate's chief iman, Ali Abu Shweima said referring to the attack.
Innocent people do eventually get upset when terrorists continue to attack them. And if the terrorists had names like Sven and Erik the people in Italian would begin to look suspiciously at herring-eaters.
The first incident this year involving a Muslim target occurred on 15 April when several petrol bombs were thrown at the Milan office of the British-based Islamic Relief charity. It is also the only attack to date for which someone has claimed responsibility with authorities receiving a telephone from a man claiming to represent a previously unknown "Fighting Christian Front". The man who did not identify himself said that an "Christian tribunal" had "sentenced to death" the centre's director, Paolo Gonzaga. No-one was injured in the attack.
So the 'Fighting Christian Front' -- which I suspect is three guys with petrol bombs -- needs to be found and shut down with long prison sentences. They can share cells with Mahmoud and Achmed.
Several weeks before the attack, Gonzaga and his group had organised a series of debates in Milan and in the northern towns of Bologna and Sassuolo in which several foreign based Islamic television preachers were invited to make speeches.

On 3 May petrol bombs were again used in an attack on the offices of an organisation mainly representing Italian converts to Islam, the Italian Islamic religious Community (COREIS) in Milan. "It is the first serious attack against us. Until then we had never received threats or any sort of intimidation", COREIS deputy president, Yahya Pallavicini, said.

On 10 August two petrol bombs exploded at another Islamic centre this time in Abbiategrasso near Milan. As in the other attacks nobody was injured but the building housing the centre was damaged. Officials at the centre said a similar attack, previously unreported had taken place on 20 July. The attacks in 2007 mark a sharp increase compared to previous years. In 2006 the only reported strike against a Muslim target was an act of vandalism on a construction site for a mosque near Siena.

Islamic officials and clerics say the upsurge in attacks has been accompanied by an increase in threats made against Muslims. "We've handed over to the police all the letters we received full of insults and threats. Most of them were sent to us in the last few months. Some of them contained death threats" Shweima said. "Not to mention all the vulgar graffiti we are forced to wipe off the walls of our centres every month" he added.
Cry me a river.
Posted by:mrp

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