Now that the corporate media has performed it assigned task—float another CIA as butterfingers story—the Nasr kidnap story will be allowed to more or less evaporate in standard fashion, dropped from the news cycle and more or less ignored to death, although the Associated Press is reporting the Italian government is in denial mode over accusations it knew all about the kidnapping of the Egyptian cleric in 2003. As for Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, the two Gladio neofascists who ran a “parallel'’ anti-terrorism police force, and are apparently connected to the Nasr kidnap case (according to prosecutors in Genoa and Milan), this story has disappeared almost entirely (a Google News search this morning returns four results, three originating in Italy and one with the Guardian in Britain).

However, if one reads between the lines, certain troublesome details emerge. For instance, as reported by the New Hampshire Union Leader, “Rome newspaper La Repubblica quoted the former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, as saying the CIA received authorization from Italy’s secret service, SISMI, before the [Nasr kidnap] operation.” Checking out the easily researched background of SISMI we learn the spook organization “has long been notorious for far right, even neo-fascist, leanings. According to Italian judicial investigators, SISMI was deeply involved in numerous plots against Italy’s democratic government, including the 1980 Bologna train station terrorist bombing that left 85 dead and 200 injured,” Canadian journalist Eric S. Margolis reported last summer. “Senior SISMI officers were in cahoots with celebrated swindler Roberto Calvi, the neo-fascist P2 Masonic Lodge, other extreme rightist groups trying to destabilize Italy, the Washington neocon operative, Michael Ledeen, and the Iran-Contra conspirators.” In short, SISMI is neck-deep in Gladio operations. As Margolis reports, the American liaison is none other than Michael Ledeen, an “influential” neocon with direct input into the Bush administration. Margolis continues:

SISMI works hand in glove with US, British and Israeli intelligence. In the 1960’s and 70’s, SISMI reportedly carried out numerous operations for CIA, including bugging the Vatican, the Italian president’s palace, and foreign embassies.

As Wayne Madsen notes, the current investigation extends into SISMI, thus possibly establishing a link between Gladio operations and Italian intelligence. “Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has quickly distanced the parallel intelligence network from official intelligence and police networks by claiming the two men arrested are just criminals and not tied to the Italian Gladio, which a number of intelligence experts believe Cossiga once headed,” writes Madesn.

Cossiga said that by not telling the Italian government of the operation, the U.S. avoided having its secret plans spread throughout the Middle East. By mentioning both the Milan and Genoa cases, Cossiga may have unintentionally linked the two. The parallel intelligence network is reportedly the outgrowth of a Gladio network consisting of six divisions that operated in Italy, North Africa, and the Middle East during the Cold War. The P-2 Lodge, headed by fascist leader Licio Gelli, reportedly maintained close links to former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his one-time foreign affairs adviser Michael Ledeen. Former CIA Osama Bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer told Italy’s La Repubblica that the kidnapping of Abu Omar was authorized by SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari. A number of SISMI agents and assets have been tied to the group, including Francesco Pazienza, a SISMI agent, and Rocco Martino, who said he was the source of the faked Niger yellowcake uranium documents that were laundered through Rome and used as proof by the Bush White House that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Niger.

It appears, according to the Italian newspaper L’Unità (original in Italian), that the DSSA [the Department of Strategic Studies on anti-Terrorism, allegedly created by Saya and Sindoca] enjoyed “official contacts” with the Berlusoni government and, according to parliamentary lawyer of Forza Italia Carlo Taormina, “beyond any reasonable doubt … the DSSA operated in strict collaboration with organs of the State and therefore in full legality,” although Silvio Berlusconi’s office is vehemently denying any connection to the DSSA.

It is now becoming increasingly obvious the governments of Italy and the United States are collaborating in a Gladilo-type operation and the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a former CIA asset, was conducted to keep him from revealing more about the operation. For instance, as the Boston Globe reported on June 27, Nasr “was involved with Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic group in northern Iraq that the United States said had ties with Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, and, according to an Italian law enforcement official, the cleric was “involved in an organization that sent people to training camps in Kurdistan… [and] was involved in preparing false documents and passports for sending people in Iraq, [perhaps] to train for bomb attacks.” It should be noted that Mullah Krekar, the leader of Ansar al-Islam, told al-Hayat newspaper in 2003 he had “a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them,” an offer Krekar said he refused. It is also interesting to note that Ansar al-Islam supported Jund al-Shams (Soldiers of the Levant), according to American intelligence officials quoted by Jeffery Goldberg and Christopher Allbritton, former AP and New York Daily News reporter. “Jund al-Shams is controlled by a man named Mussa’ab al-Zarqawi,” Allbritton quotes Goldberg, writing for the New Yorker.

Of course, apologists will dismiss the above as paranoia, and offer the corporate media take on events: Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr worked undercover for the CIA and he was kidnapped because he had gone over to the dark side. Maybe. However, this does not explain why Saya and Sindoca, intimately connected to Operation Gladio, according to Italian prosecutors, were involved in the kidnapping. Gladio specialized in penetrating left-wing organizations and turning such into terrorist outfits. Is it possible SISMI, DSSA, and U.S. military intelligence (run out of Rumsfeld’s refashioned Pentagon) are penetrating Islamic organizations in Iraq and turning them into terrorist organizations designed to discredit the Iraqi resistance? If so, we should not expect the corporate media to make such (admittedly speculative) connections. Such is left up to us “conspiracy kooks” submerged within the blogosphere, reading between the lines, and understanding history and the murderous skullduggery of the state.