Italy faces a greater risk of a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists in the run-up to general elections in April, the country's secret service
warned on Friday.
In its six-month report to Parliament, the secret service said that the prime time for a possible attack would be either now, with the Olympics taking place in Turin, or just before the April 9-10 vote.
The report also said that "freelance" Islamic terrorists posed the greatest threat because they were generally born in the West and had the best understanding of the society they lived in.
Terrorist traffic has been on the rise on the Internet and the secret service said it had monitored numerous sites which posted threats against Italy, including a call to "conquer Rome and humiliate the Cross", a clear reference to the Vatican.
Islamic terrorist groups, the report said, are currently spreading their message and recruiting new members and potential suicide bombers not at mosques, as they had done in the past, but at phone centers as well as on the Web.
