Police in southern Italy on Monday arrested a Moroccan jihadist suspect who allegedly tried to join the Islamic State militant group in Syria and was training himself to carry out terrorist attacks.
Police arrested 25-year-old Hamil Mehdi, a local street trader, in the Calabrian town of Luzzi. He had been placed under counter-terrorism surveillance after he travelled to Turkey "to pray" but was sent back to Italy by Turkish authorities for "endangering public safety".
Mehdi's family has been living in Italy since 2006 and appeared to be well integrated in the local community of Luzzi, near Cosenza, but Medhi had become radicalised over a period of years, officials said.
Mehdi denies links to IS. "I only went to Turkey to pray," he told police on his arrest.
But investigators allege Mehdi "undertook training aimed at international terrorism," Italy's interior minister Angelino Alfano stated on Monday.
Police said they had grounds to believe that the man's final destination would have been Syria, where he intended "to fight alongside [IS] guerrillas."
Manuals for training terrorists were found in his home in Luzzi, investigators said.
Other evidence against Mehdi included "his obsessive searches on Internet for IS propaganda documents and videos where he dwelt on material exalting suicide bombers, instructions on the use of arms, explosives and combat techniques," Alfano said.
"It's an important case that shows how IS used the Internet to recruit foot soldiers and foster their self-radicalisation," Alfano said.
Local authorities and investigators needed to strengthen cooperation with top Internet experts and with local Muslim communities to thwart such phenomena, he said.
Mehdi used to live in the centre of Luzzi but five years ago moved outside the town and began to isolate himself from his previous friends and follow a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, according to officials.
