Italian police arrested a
25-year-old Moroccan man near Pisa Monday on charges of
instigating Islamist terrorism and jihad (holy war) against a
rash of suspected targets including the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
police said.
Officers identified the man as Jalal El Hanaoui, born at
Souk Sebt in Morocco, who joined relatives in Italy at age 8 and
remained in the peninsula ever since, notching up a criminal
record for drug dealing and was currently unemployed.
El Hanaoui used three Facebook identities to instigate holy
war among 12,000 followers and posted photos of monuments around
the world suspected of being targets for attacks including the
tourist-famed Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Statue of Liberty, the
Cathedral of St Basil in Moscow and the Israeli wall separating
Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied West Bank.
In posts and chat with two other terrorist suspects the
Moroccan proposed using massacres, murders, attacks and damage
to create an Islamic state.
"He is very expert in computer technology and telematics and
through the web and social networks instigated jihad and holy
war," said Giuseppe Creazzo, a Florence prosecutor.
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