The Second Time Around

In a chilling conversation recorded last March by Milan police, a pair of alleged al-Qaeda operatives discussed two ways to launch a rudimentary — but deadly — chemical attack. One method, Tunisian-born Essid Sami Ben Khemais boasted to his comrade, required an unidentified “efficient” product that could be stored in tomato cans. When released, it would suffocate its victims. At another point in the bugged telephone call, Ben Khemais refers to a “gas bomb,” seemingly a much more lethal device, though apparently just as makeshift.

According to transcripts of the conversation contained in Milan court documents, Ben Khemais said this latter method had recently been refined by a Libyan chemistry professor. “Just a little [money] will do, and it’s history,” he said. It seems Ben Khemais’ boasts were just talk. There were no chemicals or any other potential weapons on the premises when he was arrested in April in an apartment outside Milan.

But last week, while Ben Khemais and three other Tunisians awaited verdicts on criminal-association charges, the threat of a chemical attack suddenly seemed much more tangible. Following leads relating to another potential Islamic terrorist cell, Italian authorities found 4 kg of a cyanide-based substance in a run-down apartment in the Due Leoni neighborhood 10 km southeast of Rome.

The predawn raid netted four Moroccan men and dozens of fake identification documents, charts of the capital’s water systems and a Rome city map with the U.S. embassy circled in red. As news of the arrests spread, there was immediate concern that the city’s water supply was a terrorist target, with some reports indicating that the terrorists had identified access to the water system under the U.S. embassy on the Via Veneto. But further investigation led authorities to suspect that they had thwarted not an attempt to poison the water supply, but the kind of chemical attack that Ben Khemais plotted last spring.

Rome’s chief prosecutor Salvatore Vecchione said the substance appeared to be potassium ferrocyanide, a chemical commonly used in gardening and textile dyeing. According to Aldo Lagana, a professor of analytic chemistry at Rome’s La Sapienza University, the substance is not lethal when diluted in water. Lagana noted, however, that potassium ferrocyanide can easily be ignited by ordinary gunpowder. “If you burn it in a closed environment,” he says, “you can have a very serious situation.” The arrested men might have had an attack of this sort — in a subway, perhaps — in mind.

Neighbors at the dilapidated apartment building in which the suspects lived said that of those arrested, one worked in a pizzeria and the others seemed to be street vendors of pirated CDs and brand-named athletic wear. A 33-year-old Albanian steelworker, who rents an apartment above that of the suspects, says he never exchanged more than a buongiorno with any of the Moroccans over the past two years: “They were always coming and going — three, five, sometimes 10 different guys. The doors and windows were always shut; sometimes they’d open a window just a crack.”

Several Italian newspapers reported that police had also found explosive materials at the apartment. But that report, along with many other details of the case — including the ages and immigration status of the four men and the possibility of additional suspects — could not be confirmed. The arrest of three other Moroccans two weeks ago in the nearby village of Tor Bella Monica suggested to some that a large terrorist cell could be at work. Morocco “is not what you’d consider a hotbed of Islamist activity,” says a French antiterrorism official. “But the germ of extremism exists there, and it’s not surprising that Moroccans have turned up within Islamist terror groups.”

Italian authorities were incensed when news of the arrests leaked out and put a freeze on information related to the case. The Rome-based daily La Repubblica quoted an angry Italian intelligence source: “This affair is damn serious, and some big mouths have blown it. Now we have seven Moroccans who are barely talking, and the big fish are still at large.” By the end of the week, an Interior Ministry official confirmed that a total of nine Moroccan immigrants had been taken into custody on suspicion of being part of the Rome-based terrorist cell. But at least one big fish didn’t get away.

Ben Khemais, also known as Saber, was convicted in Milan late last week of criminal association with the intent to obtain and transport arms, explosives and chemicals. In January, he was convicted in absentia by a Tunisian military court for belonging to a terrorist organization operating overseas. The conviction and five-year sentence for Ben Khemais, who is suspected of heading Osama bin Laden’s European logistics operations from Milan, is the first guilty verdict in Europe related to al-Qaeda since Sept. 11. Three other Tunisians received sentences of up to five years from the Italian court.

Muslim extremist activity in Milan was highlighted when U.S. authorities identified the city’s Islamic Cultural Institute as the main “station house” for bin Laden’s network in Europe. This group is believed to be supplying operatives with false documents, lodging, money and communications. Milan prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso said last week’s guilty verdicts were the first since the attacks in the U.S. that “recognized the existence on European territory of a cell that had strong links with a base in Afghanistan.” The Milan cell has not, however, been caught with potential weapons, such as the toxins found in Rome.

An Italian justice official told Time that investigators are trying to determine if there were direct links between those arrested last week and Khemais’ Milan cell: “It looks as though the Rome suspects are part of the same Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. So it’s a real possibility that there were contacts.” Other early evidence points to signs of al-Qaeda operations, including piles of false identity papers for apparent sale and distribution. And the plot’s unsophisticated approach recalls the relatively simple tools used by other presumed al-Qaeda members, such as suspected shoe-bomber Richard Reid. “The preparations are all very secretive, but also low-tech,” says the French justice official. “Explosives are made at home, from circulated recipes.”

Another troubling aspect of the case is the renewed interest in the U.S. embassy in Rome, which was closed for three days last January after the Tunisian secret service warned that an attack could be imminent. At the time, the shutdown took much of the embassy staff by surprise. The latest threat comes in a much different context, however, and the embassy remained open throughout the week. “We’re keeping our spirits up,” said one embassy official. Still, additional barricades could be seen around the palatial complex after the arrests had been made.

According to the French justice official, the embassy may become even more of an al-Qaeda target as attempts are foiled. “We’ve seen the penchant — almost obsession — of Islamist terrorists to go back to targets they have been prevented from destroying in earlier plots,” this source says. This new attempt on the U.S. embassy in Rome may not have been as daring or well-planned as the World Trade Center attack, but it could have been deadly