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Islamic terrorists seeking to recruit women: report

ROME: Islamic extremists are looking to recruit women and are trying to do so mainly through the Internet, according to an Italian intelligence report.

The document, presented to parliament Thursday, gathers evidence from the second half of 2004. The report said the Internet has established itself as a fundamental means of recruiting extremists.

The recruits, the report adds, “are now also being sought among the female audience,” and an Internet journal has been created especially with the purpose of attracting female warriors.

Female terrorists have most notably taken part in a theater siege in Moscow in October 2002, in which they and their male comrades threatened to blow up the building.

Russian special forces stormed the theater after three days and 129 hostages were killed, most by the effects of the gas used to knock out the assailants. In Italy, recruitment is also carried out by what the report calls “wandering imams” _ extremists who originally come from Pakistan and are believed to be responsible for turning mosques into recruiting centers as well as helping militants from abroad infiltrate the country. The 103-page report also singled out attacks on Italian interests in Iraq and elsewhere abroad and kidnappings in the war-ravaged country as the main risks posed by Islamic terrorism against Italy.

The risks mainly come from militants who fled the Iraqi city of Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold that U.S. and Iraqi forces assaulted in November.

Evidence suggests “there is an elevated risk for Italian interests abroad,” said the report.

It said that Italian secret services have received information about “numerous attempted attacks” on the Italian Embassy in Baghdad. The embassy has been hit several times by rockets or mortar shells in the past, causing damage and killing at least one Iraqi.

In September, Italian and Lebanese authorities arrested 10 suspected terrorists who were planning to blow up the Italian Embassy in Beirut. Italy was one of the strongest supporters of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. It didn’t send combat troops, but has deployed about 3,000 soldiers to help rebuild the country. Rome is now trying to obtain the release of Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad on Feb. 4. ap

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