Why Italy has not yet suffered Islamist terrorism

THE image is of a young man with his back turned, grasping a large knife. Beside him in stark white capitals are the Italian words “Devi combatterli” (“You must fight them”). The photo-montage, circulated in late August on Telegram, the favoured communications app of Islamic State (IS), is a blatant incitement to “lone wolves” to kill Italians. It was reproduced on the website of Site Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications, days after a video circulated of masked, IS-affiliated guerrillas in the Philippines sacking a Roman Catholic church and ripping up a picture of Pope Francis.

“You. Kafir [Infidel]. Remember this,” says a masked figure, wagging his finger at the camera. “We will be in Rome, inshallah.” His threat, from 10,000km away, may be far-fetched. The attraction for jihadists of an attack on the seat of Western Christendom is certainly not. So it is remarkable that Italy should not have experienced a single deadly jihadist attack when Britain, France, Germany and Spain have all been targeted—not least because it undermines the argument for a link between illegal immigration and terrorism (in the first half of 2017, Italy accounted for 82% of unauthorised arrivals in Europe).