Italy arrests man over planned air attack in Iraq

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police arrested an Iraqi man on Friday on suspicion of preparing an armed attack in Iraq using ultra-light aircraft and charged him with belonging to a group linked to al Qaeda.

A police special operations group arrested the man who lived in Padua, northeastern Italy, as he was trying to board a flight in Venice to travel to Iraq via Romania and Syria.

They said he had arranged to buy an unspecified number of ultra-light aircraft from an Italian firm which he planned to pack with explosives and use for an attack.

The man, identified by local media as a 35-year-old Iraqi who lived by selling kebabs, was being held on charges of "association for the purposes of international terrorism".