The officers of the Italian anti-terrorist squad DIGOS (Divisione Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciale) arrested an active ISIS member Ilhomi Sairahmonzoda, a Tajik national at Fiumicino airport, Secolo d’Italia reports.
According to the Italian news agency, the 32-year-old man “joined the Islamic State and travelled to Syria to fight in 2014.” The fugitive, characterised by numerous aliases with different nationalities and dates of birth, notably from the states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, landed at Fiumicino airport on a flight from Eindhoven (Netherlands) at 11.45 a.m.
It is noteworthy that yesterday a news story on Italian TV at 12.00 (TG4 ore 12.00 09.04.2024) reported that a Tajik man who flew to Rome at Fiumicino airport entered Italy on a Ukrainian passport issued in the name of Timur Settarov. A member of ISIS, he is of the same nationality as the terrorists who massacred the concert at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall. Now investigators are trying to understand why this man came to Rome.
The terrorist attack on 22 March at Crocus City Hall involved citizens of Tajikistan, who after the attack, headed towards Ukraine and were detained near the Russian border.
The terrorist was reportedly about to take a train to Roma Termini railway station from Fiumicino airport. When he was stopped by police officers, he offered no resistance.
Italian intelligence had long known he would arrive in the country, which is why hundreds of flights had been tracked in recent months. The news story said:
In the suitcase they found 2,000 euros in cash. To leave, the Tajik used a passport in the name of Ukrainian citizen Timur Settarov. He was framed thanks to his fingerprints. A chameleon used to travelling under a thousand different identities. Not much is known about him. He certainly moved seamlessly from Tajikistan to Russia, then to the Arab Emirates, China, Iraq and Syria, where he became an active member of Isis in 2014. Arrested twice, first in Ukraine and then in Belgium, once he returned to freedom, according to investigators, he resumed active participation in the terrorist network.
EU police authorities never talk about a “fake passport” – for them, if the passport form is genuine – they can only talk about a “mismatch” of identification data, or the “use” of false identification data in the passport. In the case of Russian defector pilot Maxim Kuzminov, Spanish law enforcement officials clearly noted “the passport form is authentic, but the identification data is false.”
Meanwhile, a new threat has come from ISIS. The organisation promises to hit stadiums during the Champions League quarter-finals. London, Paris and Madrid, where the matches will take place, are on high alert.
