Italy: Moroccan "Peace Activist" Arrested in Plot to Blow Up Milan Cathedral

From the ‘resisting Islam causes terrorism’ department:

* Mosques, as we all know, are places where Muslims not only go to pray, but to plot and plan  the demise of the infidels. (That’s you and me, in case you’re in doubt) If EUrabia continues to allow mosques to be built, as it presently does, this demise will come rather soon. If the Islamization of Europe goes according to plan, the Islamic state can be achieved by peaceful da’awa. (proselytizing)  But for some jihadists there is still too much resistance among the kuffar to the call of da’awa, they feel it is their Islamic duty to bring about the islamic state by ‘striking terror in the hearts of the infidels’, as per Koranic scriptures:

Italy: Plot to blow up Milan Cathedral

Ilhami is not the first ‘peace activist’ to plan terror attacks.

From Islam in Europe

Two Moroccans arrested in Italy yesterday wanted to blow up the Milan Cathedral on Christmas.  They hoped an attack during the busy holiday would cost dozens of lives.  This according to tapped phone calls, reports La Repubblica.

The two belonged to an Islamic terror cell which had been followed by the Italian police already for months.  “The plot was discovered yet before the suspects could get explosives,” says the Italian minister of Internal Affairs, Roberto Maroni, in response.

Rachid Ilhami (31) and Abdelkader Ghafir (43) were arrested in Giussano, a city 25km away from Milan.  The detectives gathered from tapped phone calls and confiscated computer files that the two also prepared attacks on a supermarket and a police bureau.  They are arrested on suspicion of terrorism and eventual cooperation with al-Qaeda.

Ilhami had been living since he was ten in Italy.  He is married and has two children.  He worked as a blacksmith and in his free time worked in a center for peace activities, in the area of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s villa, according to Corriere della Sera.

Source: HLN (Dutch)

Italians Fear mosques because they’re “springing up like mushrooms”

Italy’s Northern League seeks a ban on mosques

 
CAIRO (Marwa Awad, Agencies)

Anti-immigration Northern League Party of Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni is seeking a moratorium on the building of mosques as a preventative measure to future terrorist attacks. 

The demand for blocking mosque building comes as a reaction to the recent arrest of two men suspected for planning attacks in Milan, Italy’s northern financial hub.

Continued below

 

Italy: Muslims reject move to stop new mosques

*

Rome, 4 Dec.(AKI) – Muslim intellectuals in Italy have rejected a plan by the conservative government to halt the construction of new mosques, arguing that a shortage of mosques was making it more difficult to monitor radical Islam. The anti-immigrant Northern League, a coalition partner, has renewed calls to stop any more mosques being built.
* So lets see if we can get this straight:  “a shortage of mosques is making it more difficult to monitor radical Islam”, but with more mosques comes more terror and more radical Islam, so what’s this Muslim “intellectual” saying?/ed
Its call followed the arrest on Tuesday of two Moroccans suspected of plotting terrorist attacks on several targets in the northern city of Milan.    

One of the suspects accused of planning attacks in Milan was a Muslim preacher at an Islamic cultural centre outside the city. (But isn’t a Muslim preacher supposedly preaching peace? So what is this guy, another misunderstander of Islam?/ed)

“Rome’s Grand Mosque is the only official mosque in Italy, so a moratorium on the construction of future mosques is futile,” said the Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Italy’s president, Gianpiero Vincenzo.

“It is far more important to regulate the various ‘cultural centres’ where Muslims in Italy have to gather for prayers because there are no more suitable venues,” said Vincenzo.

The Grand Mosque in Rome has for some time been trying trying to set up a federation of cultural centres in Italy which pledge to abide by the peaceful and moderate principles of Islam, he said. 

“It’s a slow, delicate and strategically important task for the Muslim community in Italy and more help from the government and politicians would be invaluable,” he said.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has sought approval to dissolve associations in Italy that promote terrorism. 

The chief parliamentary whip for the Northern League party, Roberto Cota on Wednesday renewed earlier proposals by his party for a halt to mosque building in Italy. His call was met with outrage by centre-left opposition politicians.

The Northern League – to which Maroni belongs – has also proposed a referendum be held before any mosque or other place of worship is built.

The party has opposed mosque-building projects in several towns and cities in northern Italy, where Muslim immigrant communities have been growing.

Last November, Muslims and non-Muslims expressed outrage at the attempted ‘desecration’ of a plot of land earmarked for a mosque in the northern city of Padua by Northern League members who paraded a pig on the site.

Senior member and cabinet minister, Roberto Calderoli, last October proposed a regular “pig day” in which he threatened to take his pet pig for a walk on land in the Northern League stronghold of the Veneto region where mosques were planned. 

Pigs are considered unclean in the Muslim and Jewish faiths.

The Northern League is a coalition partner of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling People of Freedom party. 

Continued: Mosques like mushrooms

 

La Stampa, a local Italian newspaper quoted Maroni on Thursday stating that “Islamist terrorism” runs deep in Italy and must be stamped out.

“These arrests show that Islamist terrorism is entrenched in Italy, and that we must be vigilant,” Maroni told the paper. 

“Unfortunately it is not easy to distinguish between places of worship and those that recruit terrorists and finance the planning of attacks,” he added.

Ally of the conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Northern League began a motion in the lower house of parliament banning the construction of places of worship for Muslims and cultural centers in Italy. 

The motion comes as a preliminary step to curb the increasing number of mosques until parliament passes an official law on their establishment.

 

 

“ Mosques are springing up like mushrooms and mayors can do nothing about it because there is no law 
Roberto Cota, head of Northern League in Chamber of Deputies

“Mosques are springing up like mushrooms and mayors can do nothing about it because there is no law,” Roberto Cota head of the Northern League in the Chamber of Deputies was quoted as saying. 

Italy has a growing Muslim population of 1.2 million including immigrants and converts. There are 258 mosques in Italy and 628 Islamic associations according to Imam Muhammed Abdel Fatah from Milan.

Yet such places of worship look nothing like traditional mosques since the Italian government does not allow building them in the traditional shape with domes and minarets. It only certifies places such as town halls or homes as places of worship.

“This is because there is no official acknowledgement of Islam as a religion here. The Ministry of Interior considers Muslim places of worship as cultural centers,” Imam Muhammed Abdel Fatah from Milan explained. 

The recent arrest of two Moroccan men has strengthened the Northern League’s push for a legal ban on mosques. The men are accused of planning attacks on a number of sites: a supermarket in Seregno, north of Milan, a police barracks and an immigration office in Milan.

 

“ Mosques are Islamic places of peace for social gathering and prayer. We teach Muslims in Italy to respect the land they live in and its laws. “
Abu Khalil, Imam from Islamic Cultural Institute

But Abu Khalil, imam from the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, is critical of the Party’s proposal.

“Mosques are Islamic places of peace for social gathering and prayer. We teach Muslims in Italy to respect the land they live in and its laws. A proposal to ban the building of mosques is unacceptable and goes against the Italian constitution,” Abu Khalil told AlArabiya.net.

Asked about the recent arrest of the two Moroccan men, Imam Abu Khalil said to AlArabiya.net that he thinks the media is over exaggerating the case if it intends to use such allegations to shut down Muslim places of worship.

“Even if the allegations happen to be true, a fair government does not punish 1.2 million Muslims because it fears two people,” he said.