Terrorism suspects arrested in Italy

Two Moroccan factory workers living in the Milan suburbs were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of plotting to carry out bomb attacks on the outskirts of Italy's financial capital.

Rachid Ilhami, 31, and Abdelkader Ghafir, 42, both married with children, had frequented an Islamic cultural centre in the town of Macherio, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi owns a home.

They had been grooming recruits there, police said.

Possible targets included the parking lots of a bar and a supermarket, a police barracks and an immigration office, according to police, who had been investigating the pair since March 2007.

"These individuals do not have international ties, but shared the strategies and ideas of al Qaeda," said Bruno Megale of Italy's anti-terrorism police, DIGOS.

Ilhami and Ghafir, who had been living in Italy for around 10 years, downloaded information about bomb-building from the Internet. They also discussed potential targets in conversations monitored by police with eavesdropping devices.

In the past two months, the men had appeared to start preparations for actual attacks, police said. But they had not secured any supplies needed to carry out a bombing and no action was imminent, they said.

Neither of the men had attended training camps abroad.

Italy has not suffered the kind of violence by Islamic militants seen in Spain and Britain, but Italian officials say the country remains on high alert and police regularly apprehend suspects.