Roundup: Italy facing tough new world over terrorism, mafia

This week on Tuesday the Italian government expelled a suspect of terrorist intentions after investigations revealed he allegedly wanted to commit acts of terrorism.

According to Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, the 40-year-old Moroccan man left Italy on a plane bound for Casablanca.

"I decided to expel him because ... he showed a will to commit terrorist acts and the intention to go to conflict zones in Syria," Alfano said.

This was one of the serial actions taken in this country.

So far this year, Italy, which joined many other countries in raising its security alert after militants killed nearly 140 people in Paris both in January and November, expelled 65 suspected extremists.

The government believes the current year has been a positive one as concerns the fight against terrorism. During this year, anti-terrorism initiatives had been put forward for the world exposition in Milan and the Catholic Jubilee in Rome. For the collaboration, Italian parliament also passed tougher anti-terrorism measures.

The Interior Ministry said in its annual report that a total of 259 extremists have been arrested, 74,177 have been checked and 489 investigated since the beginning of 2015 .

In addition, police have checked 11,647 vehicles and shut down 6,636 websites. An unprecedented number of 6,300 troops, plus police forces, have been deployed at central venues of major cities of Italy, which has significantly increased investments in security and defense, Alfano told reporters earlier this week.

In the December issue of Longitute, an Italian magazine on world affairs, Pialuisa Bianco said what happened in Paris (on Nov. 13) could have happened in Berlin, Brussels, London or Rome.

"Europe feels angry and humiliated, continent under siege. On one hand, along its southern edge, European governments have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people escaping from Middle Eastern hotspots and looking for refuge. The Paris atrocities, the murderous work of the self-styled Islamic State, on the other hand, reinforced just how easily the Middle East's brutal civil war can reach deep into the European continent," said Bianco, the editor-in-chief of Longitute.

"Terrorism can never be completely defeated. The battle will be long," she said.

That's why Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that Italy needs the cultural power to deal with terrorist threats. He said the response to the threat of extremist terrorism could not be solely military action.

"A cultural response is needed," Renzi told a news conference at the Elysee Palace, the residence of the French president when he paid a visit last month after the Paris attacks.

Renzi's government has announced plans to invest an extra two billion euros (about 2.18 billion U.S. dollars) in security and education, culture following the Paris tragedy.

This year, organized crime is the other big issue as concerns security in Italy besides terrorism.

A total of 175 operations have been carried out and 1,794 people arrested by police in 2015. In addition, 53 fugitives have been caught including seven dangerous ones, of which one was included in the list of the 100 most wanted people in Italy, a report released earlier this month by the Interior Ministry said.

On Wednesday this week, the police seized assets worth 40 million euros allegedly linked to the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia's Tripodi clan, and placed six alleged clan members under special surveillance with mandatory residence orders.

The seized assets included companies, property and vehicles, as well as land in Calabria, Lazio, and Lombardy.

Police said the Tripodi clan had indirectly and directly acquired control and management of businesses, permits, authorizations, contracts, public services and public works along the Vibo Valentia coastline and in the regions of Lazio and Lombardy.

The clan members were accused of extortion and usury, issuing invoices for work that was never completed, and infiltrating public tenders in Lazio. But all of those news sounds "new normal" in the country.

According to Alfano, Italy's fight against the organized crime "is based on the three strategies of arrest of the fugitives, hard prison and seizure of criminal property."

This year police have seized a total of 10,979 assets worth more than 4 billion euros and have confiscated a total of 2,430 assets worth 616 million euros.

In addition, nine municipalities across Italy have been put under temporary receivership for criminal infiltration. The same happened for 32 companies also found to have been infiltrated by the organized crime. (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollars) Endit