Why Italy is not the target of terrorist attacks: The reason is the mafia, but not in the way you think

Photograph of a young man with his back turned, holding a large knife. "Devi combatterli" (You must fight them in Italian) is written next to it in large white letters.

The photo montage was popular in August on Telegram, the Islamic State's favorite app, in an attempt to inspire "lone wolves" to kill the Italian.

The photo was revealed by the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications, a few days after footage of masked guerrillas looting a Catholic church in the Philippines and tearing up a photo of Pope Francis.

"You. Infidel. Remember this," the masked person says, pointing a threatening finger. "We will be in Rome, God willing".

This threat from a distance of 10 thousand kilometers is not particularly frightening, but the attractiveness of an attack on the seat of Western Christianity is.

That is why many people wonder how Italy has not yet been the target of jihadist attacks, while Britain, France, Germany and Spain have suffered series of attacks. It is also one of the most obvious arguments that there is no direct connection between illegal immigrants and terrorism (in the first half of 2017, 82% of the total number of illegal immigrants arrived in Italy).

The most vivid explanation for this exception is that the Italian mafia quietly dissuaded jihadists from establishing a foothold in that country. However, Arturo Varveli of Milan's Institute for International Political Studies says that Italian mobsters control the south of the country, while most immigrants go to the richer north.

"The mafia is somewhat deserving. But not in the way people might think," said a high-ranking official from the Italian security service for "Economist". The fight against the dreaded organized crime groups has provided the police with a lot of experience in tracking closely related groups.

That experience was further reinforced by the campaign to suppress the left-wing and right-wing terrorist groups that wreaked havoc in Italy in the XNUMXs and XNUMXs. Organized crime and terrorism have encouraged judges to make decisions and orders on wiretapping and other surveillance measures much more easily than in other European countries.

The recent history of Italy explains such an approach to the problem of terrorism. When the Boeing 24 took off from Bologna to Tirana on September 737, it was carrying 209 people who had been deported from Italy for "religious extremism".

A 2016-year-old Muslim man was released from custody the day before, after he was arrested for trying to persuade worshipers not to enter the church. He has been under constant police surveillance since he was first detained in XNUMX.

But, Italian agencies admit, they have far fewer suspects they follow than France and Britain, and deportations are only partly responsible for that. The number of "foreign fighters" of the Islamic State from European countries is a guide of sorts on radicalization. A study from a few years ago showed that there were only 87 of those fighters from Italy, while there were 760 from Britain, and as many as 2.500 from France.

Varveli indicates that there are two reasons for this: few migrants in Italy are from the second generation of migrants, which is the most susceptible to radicalization, and there are no Muslim ghettos in Italy, as is often the case in France.

Mikele Gropi, who sells at the United Kingdom's Defense Academy, points to the third factor, which is evidence that al-Qaeda at its peak used Italy as a logistical base for Europe.

"That's what kept us safe, they needed us," says Gropi

The situation has changed, so some jihadists who recently carried out attacks had connections with Italy, such as Youssef Zagba, an Italian born in Morocco, who was one of the attackers in London on June 3.

Gropi fears that the further radicalization of Libya could lead to greater dangers for Italy, and that one of the targets could be the Vatican.