Two Osama bin Laden bodyguards among 18 arrested in Italy

An Italian prosecutor has said that a group of terrorists, including two purported bodyguards of Osama bin Laden, suspected in a bomb attack in a Pakistani market that killed more than 100 people had also planned an attack against the Vatican in 2010 that was never carried out.

Prosecutor Mauro Mura told a press conference in Cagliari, Sardinia, on Friday that wiretaps indicated the suspected terrorists were planning a bomb attack at the Vatican and that a suicide bomber had arrived in Rome.

Mura said the attack plans never went further and that the suicide bomber left Italy, though it wasn’t clear why. He said the wiretaps gave “signals of some preparation for a possible attack.”

Italian police said Friday they were making arrests of 18 suspected extremists, including two purported bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, who allegedly staged attacks in Pakistan and sought to topple the Pakistani government.

“We don’t have proof, we have strong suspicion,” Mario Carta, head of the police unit leading the investigation, said when asked for more details on a possible attack against the seat of the Catholic church.

The Vatican appeared unmoved by the purported threat. “From what it appears, this concerns a hypothesis that dates from 2010 which didn’t occur,” Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said in a statement. “It has therefore no relevance today and no reason for particular concern.”

The suspects arrested on Friday had also sought to topple the Pakistani government, police said.

Counter-terrorism police in Sardinia said some of the 18 suspects were responsible for “numerous bloody acts of terrorism in Pakistan”, including the October 2009 explosion in a market in Peshawar in which more than 100 people died.