Anti-terrorism police in Italy have arrested an Italian citizen of Moroccan decent for being an ISIS member and planning a truck attack in a series of arrests this month targeting suspected suspects.
Elmahdi Halili, 23, arrested in the northern city of Turin, “was studying how to prepare a truck for an attack,” Francesco Messina, the city’s police chief said. “He was learning how to use a knife and looking into where and how to attack.”
The arrested suspect is said to have been inspired by the London attack of 2017 where assailants used three vehicles.
Police said Halili received a two-year suspended prison term in 2015 for “instigating terrorism” by running a website praising Islamic State and hailing the attacks it or its supporters perpetrated in Europe.
Police instigated the operation targeting an undisclosed number of accomplices, both foreign and Italian, some of whom had converted to Islam and were part of “a campaign of radicalization.”
In recent months, Italy has stepped up expulsions of foreigners believed to be a threat to national security. So far this year, 29 have been expelled, most of them Muslims, compared with 132 for all of 2017.
