ROME -- A planned terrorist assassination attempt in Rome has been stopped, with the arrest of a 22 year old Somali Imam in Molise on Wednesday, police said.  “We have precise technical confirmation around the possibility that he was organising an attack in Rome.”

 This is what the head of Campobasso’s prosecutors Armando D’Alterio explained on Wednesday, detailing several elements of the operation in Digos di Campobasso on Wednesday morning that finished in the arrest of a young 22-year-old Somali Imam, who was requesting asylum, at a homeless shelter in Campomarino.

 The investigators had gained information that on Wednesday the young man was going to escape from the structure where he was being housed, most likely in order to head for Rome.

 He reportedly invited the faithful he led “to accomplish violent actions”, in adherence to the principles of Al Shabab and ISIS, succeeding in gaining the support of some and causing alarm amongst others, forcing them to move away from the communal prayers and seek police intervention.

 Encouraged to Jihad, he praised the Paris attacks and incited them to martyrdom, indicating as a possible target “the train stations in Rome.”  D’Alterio said that the arrest warrant came after “executive actions of criminal intent, repeated activities of incitement to the committing of crimes with a terrorist ending towards fellow guests in the ‘Happy Family’ housing in Campomarino.”

 The police revealed that the Somali “exploited the quality ‘of the imam of the local community' to invite Islamic Jihad against the infidels; divulge in activities of terrorism by Islamic groups, with particular view to some of them, and expressing laudatory comments, gory images and movies of actions related to the extremist Islamic organizations and reporting to the onlookers, housed in the same center, coming from areas close to the conflict locations (Middle East and North Africa) the intention, once he obtained the 'passport' (ie political asylum in Italy) to travel to Syria to fight.”

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