Italian intelligence suggest link between Palestinian terrorists, Sicilian mafia

Italian intelligence documents from the 1980s, declassified and investigated by Il Giornale, suggest suspected connections between Palestinian terrorist organizations and the Sicilian Mafia, including possible cooperation in weapons trafficking, narcotics smuggling, and explosives expertise. The records do not establish a formal operational alliance.

Italian intelligence documents from the 1980s, recently declassified and investigated by the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, suggest suspected connections between Palestinian terrorist organizations and the Sicilian Mafia. The investigation, by journalist Giulia Sorrentino, draws on intelligence reports, judicial records, and historical documents describing networks extending from Lebanon and Syria to Sicily and Rome. A central document from November 9, 1983, gathered by Italy's Carabinieri, describes Mafia networks associated with the Greco and Gambino families operating in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, including a shipment of approximately 900 kilograms of morphine base toward Catania. The same intelligence warned of a possible terrorist attack against the US Embassy in Rome. The investigation also revisits the July 29, 1983, assassination of magistrate Rocco Chinnici, noting that while the use of a remotely detonated car bomb resembled techniques from Lebanon's civil war, Italian judicial proceedings established Cosa Nostra's responsibility and found no evidence of Palestinian operatives participating. The article notes that the newly published investigation does not establish a formal operational alliance between Abu Nidal's organization and Cosa Nostra, and the allegations have not all been independently corroborated.