ROME — Italian police arrested five suspected terrorists Wednesday accused of planning violent attacks against range of targets including former President George W. Bush, Rome’s Jewish community and Romanian nationals.
Five members of Militia, a far-right extremist group based in Rome, were arrested and charged with various offenses including spreading racial hatred, defacing property, criminal conspiracy and threatening institutions, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
A further 16 members of Militia were placed under investigation.
Police accused Militia of planning a “revolutionary war” and said the group planned “a series of violent actions” against Bush; Rome mayor Gianni Alemanni; the head of Rome’s Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici; parliamentary speakers Renato Schifani and Gianfranco Fini; and Romanian nationals.
Two of those arrested planned a bomb attack on Pacifici, police said.
Militia, which has been found guilty of vandalizing public buildings in the past, also is accused of receiving stolen goods and promoting violence by giving out extremist leaflets to members of the public, over a period of three years.
Police believe the group planned to link up with similar groups in Northern Europe.
The arrests came a day after an Italian far-right author shot dead two Senegalese men and wounded three others before killing himself in a daylight shooting spree in the central city of Florence.
Last week, Italian anarchist group Federazione Anarchia Informale (Informal Anarchist Federation) — also known as FAI — claimed responsibility for sending two parcel bombs to offices in Italy and Germany.
One of the parcel bombs exploded at the office of Italy’s tax-collecting organization Equitalia in Rome on Friday, slightly injuring the agency director. The other, which was sent to the CEO of Deutsche Bank, was intercepted by police in Frankfurt.