The Misrata-led forces, who have gripped most of Sirte city from IS militants over the last few days, informed Italy of an IS terrorist cell based nearby Milan and linked to a terrorist warlord, who was previously deported by the Italian authorities.
The Libyan authorities found documents in Sirte after the Misrata-led forces captured main areas from IS militants, especially their main base in Ouagadougou Conference Halls, which fell to Al-Bunyan Al-Marsoos last week.
“The documents assure that there is an IS cell in Italy.” The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.
The terrorist cell, reportedly based in Milan’s San Siro neighborhood, has been connected with Abu Nassim, a Tunisian IS commander who is in his 40s and who lived in Italy for most of the 1990s. Abu Nassim’s real name is Moez Ben Abdelkader Fezzani, and he came to Italy in 1989 as a construction worker, wrote the Italian newspaper.
“It’s believed that Abu Nassim travelled to Afghanistan, where he fought for Al-Qaeda and he was arrested by the US forces in 2001 when he spent eight years at the infamous Bagram airbase detention facility before being transferred to Italy.” Corriere della Sera reported.
Abu Nassim was found not guilty of terrorist recruitment in 2012 by an Italian court and he was deported to Tunisia yet after an appeal against the ruling was filed, Abu Nassim was convicted. However, it was too late as Abu Nassim was already fighting with IS terrorists in Syria. He is now said to be in charge of IS forces around the Libyan port of Sabratha since 2014.
Italy remains on high alert for fear that IS militants, who are fleeing Sirte, would come to the country on boats disguised as asylum seekers and migrants.
