By Wayne Madsen

A MAJOR SPY SCANDAL IS BREAKING IN ITALY -- PARALLEL, UNOFFICIAL NEO-FASCIST ITALIAN INTELLIGENCE GROUP HAS TIES TO NEO CON INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS IN BUSH ADMINISTRATION INVOLVED IN KIDNAPING MILAN IMAM. GENOA POLICE BUST PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE CELLS AROUND ITALY. POSSIBLE LINKS BETWEEN BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND TERRORIST GROUPS FIGURE IN PROBE.

Washington and Rome, Jul 4, 2005 UPDATED -- Genoa police have arrested the two leaders of a neo-Fascist unofficial intelligence and "anti-terrorism" police network in Italy and have conducted searches of homes throughout the country in a major crackdown on a group that recruited police and intelligence agents to their cause. The two neo-Fascist leaders -- Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca -- who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio, were arrested. Some 25 members of the regular state police, the Carabinieri, the Frontier police, and the Prison police were placed under official investigation. Tens of searches, including two houses in Genoa, were conducted by police in nine Italian regions: Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio, Molise, Sicily and Sardinia. The investigation may soon extend to members of the Italian intelligence service SISMI. In 2004, Saya and Sindoca established the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies (DSSA), which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon's Likud government in Israel.

Some Italian police were tricked into assisting the organization because they thought it was legitimate. Saya and Sindoca were leaders of the Destra Nazionale - Nuovo MSI (an off shoot of the neo-Fascist MSI party represented in the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi). The group is also unofficially known as the Fiamma Tricolore (Tri Color Flame). Police temporarily shut down the web site of Destra Nazionale - Nuovo MSI. The web site was back up on July 3. Another web site run by DSSA asked for anonymous tips on terrorists and fraudulently claimed the be linked to official police functions. That site has also reportedly been shut down by police. There is now a suspicion by prosecutors in Genoa and Milan that the neo-Fascist intelligence group may have been involved with American covert operators in the kidnaping of Imam Abu Omar (Moustapha Hassan Nasr) from a street in Milan in 2003. Omar, a political refugee in Italy, was spirited out of Italy to Egypt by a covert team of U.S. Defense Department Special Forces, mercenaries, and intelligence agents who are now the subject of international arrest warrants (see articles below). There is now mounting evidence that the U.S. team was working with the parallel Italian intelligence network.

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has quickly distanced the parallel intelligence network from official intelligence and police networks by claiming the two men arrested are just criminals and not tied to the Italian Gladio, which a number of intelligence experts believe Cossiga once headed. Cossiga also defended the secret U.S. intelligence operation in Italy that is presently under attack by Milan prosecutors. Cossiga said that by not telling the Italian government of the operation, the U.S. avoided having its secret plans spread throughout the Middle East. By mentioning both the Milan and Genoa cases, Cossiga may have unintentionally linked the two. The parallel intelligence network is reportedly the outgrowth of a Gladio network consisting of six divisions that operated in Italy, North Africa, and the Middle East during the Cold War. The P-2 Lodge, headed by fascist leader Licio Gelli, reportedly maintained close links to former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his one-time foreign affairs adviser Michael Ledeen. Former CIA Osama Bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer told Italy's La Repubblica that the kidnaping of Abu Omar was authorized by SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari. A number of SISMI agents and assets have been tied to the group, including Francesco Pazienza, a SISMI agent, and Rocco Martino, who said he was the source of the faked Niger yellowcake uranium documents that were laundered through Rome and used as proof by the Bush White House that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Niger. That charge prompted the CIA to send Ambasssador Joseph Wilson to Niger resulting in a retaliatory exposure by the White House of the CIA's covert weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation network.

Italian sources report that the Milan case against the Americans and the Genoa case against the private Italian network may be linked in another way. The reported CIA station chief in Milan, Honduran-born Robert Seldon Lady (whose name may be an alias and whose CIA connections may be incorrect or overstated) was, prior to his assignment in Milan, in charge of a covert American unit in Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua charged with penetrating anti-American groups and taking them over. It is now believed that Lady was in charge of a similar operation to turn Abu Omar and others into intelligence assets for the Americans. Abu Omar, according to Albanian intelligence sources, assisted the U.S. with intelligence on Islamic militants in Albania. It is also believed that the late Deputy SISMI chief Nicola Calipari became aware of information in Iraq that linked the control of terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere to a "third level" in "an anti-terrorism country." Calipari was shot to death by U.S. troops while transporting freed Italian hostage and journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad International Airport. The U.S. ruled the shooting an "accident." Abu Omar may have become a hot potato for the Americans after Calipari discovered links between the Americans and terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere -- and a decision was made to conduct a "rendition" of the imam to Egypt to get him out of circulation. Abu Omar, also said to have been a credible intelligence source, may have also become aware of U.S. connections to terrorist groups.

In an unexpected and possibly related move, the U.S. Defense Department announced that it was withdrawing a specal forces unit, mostly comprising Navy SEAL personnel, from the Rota Naval Station near Cadiz in southern Spain. The move came after the Pentagon announced it would move much of its Special Operations to southern Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, and Portugal and establish a new Special Operations command at Rota. Some experts on Gladio and the "stay behind networks" have cited the similarity of the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings and a Gladio/P-2-connected train bombing in Bologna in August 1974 and the 1978 assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro (after he announced he would bring Communists into the government) and the recent assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri after his negotiations with the pro-Syria and pro-Iran Hezbollah. Hariri was reportedly threatened beforehand by White House National Security Council officials in the same way Henry Kissinger threatened Moro in 1974 while the Christian Democratic leader was Foreign Minister. The United States blamed the Italian Red Brigades for Moro's killing in the same manner it blamed Syria for Hariri's assassination. And in another link to the present day, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) also threatened Moro in 1976 for negotiating with the Communists. This was at the same time both Richard Perle and another arch-neo, Frank Gaffney, worked on Jackson's Senate staff.