With over 60,000 refugees crossing into Italian territorial water from North Africa with many from Somalia where Al-Qaida affiliated groups have a great deal of control over large parts of the territory, the Italian navy’s concerns are explained by Luigi B Mantelli the commander in chief of the navy “there is a great risk that genuine refugees are infiltrated by hard line terrorists “.
The Italian navy has increased its role and involvement in intercepting the refugee boats and using shared intelligence and screening systems is attempting to identify terrorists and human traffickers .
Over 160 traffickers have been arrested so far but there are no figure for arrested terrorists.
Unusually the largely civilian immigration issue is now finding itself on military agenda and fight against terrorism.