ROME (AFP) — Italian police on Tuesday arrested two men in Milan suspected of preparing attacks on civilian and military targets in and around the northern city, according to a spokesman for the prosecutors.
The pair "took part in planning attacks against civilian and military targets," the spokesman told AFP, adding that their arrest warrant had been issued by anti-terrorist investigators.
The ANSA news agency said the two men were from Morocco, naming them as Rachid Ilhami, 31, and Gafir Abdelkader, 42.
The prosecutors' spokesman could not say whether any other suspects were sought.
Both are accused of international terrorism, a charge introduced into Italian law after the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States.
ANSA said the two were planning attacks on a supermarket in Seregno, north of Milan, and a police barracks and an immigration office in Milan.
About 10 people implicated in the investigation whose telephones were tapped revealed Al-Qaeda sympathies during their conversations, the news agency said.
The arrested men are the first to face charges of planning attacks on Italian soil, ANSA said.
Others have been arrested on suspicion of belonging to a logistical cell or having recruited suicide bombers to carry out attacks in the Middle East.
Prosecutors were to hold a news conference in Milan later Tuesday.
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