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MILAN (AP) — Italian authorities have known about it for years -- but they're revealing today what they say was a planned terrorist attack against the Vatican five years ago that was never carried out.
They released that information as they announced the results of a decade-long investigation into a terror network based in Italy -- one that was trying to stop Pakistan's actions against the Taliban. Police arrested nine suspects, and they're looking for nine others. Three of them are still believed to be in Italy.
A prosecutor says wiretaps that were collected as part of the investigation indicated "some preparation for a possible attack" at the Vatican. He says that included the arrival in Rome of a Pakistani suicide bomber -- who eventually left Italy.
At the time of the suspected plot, Pope Benedict was still dealing with reaction in the Muslim world to a speech he had made in Germany in 2006, in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who had described some teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman."
Italian officials have recently made it clear that they take seriously the threat of the Islamic State group to conquer Rome and the seat of Christianity.
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150-c-21-(Colleen Barry, AP correspondent)-"Muhammad as evil (quick out)"-AP correspondent Colleen Barry reports the planned attack against Pope Benedict was around the time the pope had made a controversial reference to Muslim teachings. (24 Apr 2015)
<<CUT *150 (04/24/15)££ 00:21 "Muhammad as evil (quick out)"
149-c-20-(Colleen Barry, AP correspondent)-"attack never happened"-AP correspondent Colleen Barry reports Italian authorities say Islamic extremists plotted to attack the Vatican a few years ago. (24 Apr 2015)
<<CUT *149 (04/24/15)££ 00:20 "attack never happened"
151-c-18-(Colleen Barry, AP correspondent)-"hundred more people"-AP correspondent Colleen Barry reports Italian authorities believe they've broken up part of a terror network that in 2010 planned a suicide-bomb attack on the Vatican. (24 Apr 2015)
<<CUT *151 (04/24/15)££ 00:18 "hundred more people"
APPHOTO GB104: A police car patrols in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Friday, April 24, 2015. Islamic extremists suspected in a bomb attack in a Pakistani market that killed more than 100 people had also planned an attack against the Vatican in 2010 that was never carried out, an Italian prosecutor said Friday. Wiretaps collected as part of investigation into an Islamic terror network operating in Italy gave "signals of some preparation for a possible attack" at the Vatican, prosecutor Mauro Mura told a news conference in Cagliari, Sardinia. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) (10 Jan 2015)
<<APPHOTO GB104 (01/10/15)££
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