Anti-terrorism police Wednesday broke up a suspected jihadi cell, arresting two Albanians and an Italian in Turin, one of whom allegedly wrote material promoting the Islamic State extremist group.
The Albanians, who are relatives, are suspected of terrorist recruitment, while the 20-year-old Italian of Moroccan origin faces charges of spreading terrorist propaganda via the Internet, police said.
The Italian of Moroccan origin is resident in Turin as is one of the two Albanian suspects, while the second Albanian lives in his native country, according to police.
The Moroccan-descended suspect uploaded a 64-page document in Italian lauding the Islamic State that was shared by users of the popular social networking website Facebook, police said.
"The document is significant...because it was specifically conceived for an audience of Italians or people who read Italian," police stated.
The arrests came amid raids carried out in the northern Lombardy and Piedmont regions and in the central region of Tuscany as part of an operation targeting suspected Islamic State sympathisers.