Italy unaware of planned strike

Italian police said yesterday they were unaware of any planned al Qaeda attack on Israel's soccer team last October, contradicting an Israeli newspaper report that Italy helped foil the plan through last-minute arrests.

Mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the attack had been intended to take place during a European Championship qualifier in Malta on October 12 but was prevented when a Tunisian on the island was arrested on an Italian tip-off.

"I am unaware that there was any planned strike on the Israeli soccer team," Giampaolo Ganzer, head of the Italian police unit that dismantled a supected al Qaeda cell in the week preceding the soccer match, told Reuters.

"We knew of no imminent attack when we made those arrests." Ganzer's unit said on October 11 it had arrested four Tunisian men in Italy on suspicion of preparing attacks on unspecified targets in Europe. A Tunisian man was seized in Malta and extradited to Italy as part of the same operation.

Judicial sources in Milan close to the investigation into dozens of suspected militants arrested in Italy in the past year said they too were unaware of any planned attack on Israel's soccer squad.

There was no mention of any plans to attack Israelis in the 150-page arrest warrant issued by Italian justice officials, legal sources told Reuters.

Israeli national soccer coach Avraham Grant told Israeli Army radio the team managers were warned by Israeli security officials that a Tunisian citizen connected to al Qaeda had been arrested.

"I think a day before the game, they arrested a person connected to al Qaeda," Grant said. "(At the time) we didn't understand that there was a specific warning. We did not realise they planned an attack."

Yedioth Ahronoth quoted a "security source in Rome" as saying that Italian officials were investigating the possibility the suspected al Qaeda operatives had been planning an attack against the Israeli soccer team in Malta.

The newspaper said the Italian secret service was tipped off about the impending attack after overhearing a telephone conversation in which one suspect said: "Everything is ready for the game. The ground is ready. We will win".

The newspaper provided no further details. Al Qaeda is suspected of being behind the US suicide bombings as well as a failed attempt to fire missiles at an Israeli airliner in Mombasa in Kenya last Thursday and the suicide bombing of a nearby Israeli-owned hotel minutes later.

Ten Kenyans, three Israelis and three suicide bombers were killed in that attack. Two of the Israelis were children.