Scottish Catholic Observer

According to Italian authorities, one of the suspects is a Abderrahim Moutahrrick, a Moroccan-born national living in Italy who allegedly received orders from ISIS to attack Rome during the Year of Mercy events that end on November 2016.

It is believed that the planned attack on the Vatican would have coincided with another strike on the Israeli embassy in Rome—described by one of the other suspects, 23-year-old Moroccan-born Abderrahmane Khachia, as hitting ‘Israel in Rome.’

After intercepting the suspects’ messages, authorities made arrested Mr Khachia in the northern Italian city of Varese and Mr Moutahrrick in the city of Lecco, north of Milan. In addition to these arrests, the Italian authorities have also issued arrest warrants for an Italian-Moroccan couple who travelled to Syria last year to join ISIS, with the man in the relationship named as Mohamed Koraichi, who allegedly directed Mr Moutahrrick to carry out the attacks on Italian soil. They state that Mr Moutahrrick had sought to buy weapons from an Albanian fixer in Italy with regards to the planned attack on the Vatican, but also had plans to take his wife and two children, aged 2 and 4, to ISIS-held territory in Syria.

“For these enemies I swear if I manage to bring my family to safety, I swear I will be the first to attack […] in this crusading Italy […] the Vatican with the will of God,” Mr Moutahrrick allegedly told Mr Koraichi in an audio message intercepted by authorities in March.

ISIS regularly uses the symbolism of Rome and the Roman Empire, and Holy Wars fought by the ‘crusaders’ during the Middle Ages in order to recruit foreign fighters to attack sites in Europe.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi took to Twitter in response to the arrests.

“Very important anti-extremist operation in north this morning. Compliments to the ministry, intelligence (services), investigators and police forces #alltogether,” he tweets.