Italian authorities arrested a convicted Tunisian terrorist with links to ISIS as he tried to enter the country on a boat carrying Syrian refugees.
Ben Nasr Mehdi was first arrested in Italy in 2007 after getting exposed as the mastermind behind planned attacks on Italian soil on behalf of a now ISIS-affiliated group. Mehdi was deported last year after completing his seven-year prison term in Italy.
It appears he planned to finish what he started in 2007 and carry-out his Jihadist calling.
Reports revealed the arrest Monday. It apparently took place Oct. 4 after a navy vessel rescued a ship of 200 migrants in the Mediterranean. Mehdi claimed to be a refugee fleeing war but was caught during a finger print scanning, along with the human traffickers that organized the trip. Local authorities tried to keep the arrest secret to prevent panic and handed Mehdi over to Tunisian authorities.
The arrest follows wide-spread fear that ISIS and other terrorist organizations are taking advantage of the migrant crisis in order to get Jihadists on the ground in Europe. A Libyan government official told BBC in May that interviews with human traffickers confirmed the fear that terrorists were trying to sneak in.
Authorities seized “poisons, remote explosive detonators and manuals on guerrilla warfare,” in relation to Mehdi’s arrest in 2007, according to The Independent.
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