Free Republic

Italy probes possible CIA role in abduction By John Crewdson (Chicago) Tribune senior correspondent An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy. Italian newspapers have reported that the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, is investigating the possible role of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the disappearance of Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, a popular figure in Milan's Islamic community who vanished Feb. 17, 2003....

ROME, May 8 — Investigators analyzing computers seized from an Italian mosque say they have uncovered images of the twin towers that were downloaded just days before the 9/11 attacks, as well as a trove of pornographic photos they believe were used to conceal coded messages. On Sept. 4, 2001, according to investigators, pictures of the World Trade Center were saved as temporary files on one of the computers at the Via Quaranta mosque in Milan — the mosque frequented by Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed, also known as Abu Saleh, an Egyptian currently on trial in absentia in Milan on...

MILAN, Italy — Italian anti-terrorism investigators, poring over hundreds of hours of surreptitiously recorded conversations among members of Europe's most important al-Qaida outpost, say they are convinced a cell in Milan supplied false passports and other bogus documents to al-Qaida operatives who may have succeeded in entering the United States. The absence of any apparent contact between the Milan al-Qaida operation and the Sept. 11 hijackers, who spawned their deadly plot in Hamburg, Germany, could mean that other potential al-Qaida terrorists managed to take up residence in the United States before Sept. 11 and may still be there awaiting a...