The yellow flag of Hezbollah with the Kalashnikov in green, which emerges from the first letter of Allah, flies not in Lebanon but in the square of the No Kings procession in Rome on 28 March. The banner of the Shiite janissaries of the ayatollahs is attached to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, green, white and red with the tulip symbol of martyrdom, in the middle. In the procession unfurling a large banner with the words “Trump Executioner”, the Iranian flags mix with the Palestinian ones, the red ones of the far left groups, the CGIL and obviously the rainbow colors of peace. The standard bearers with the Iranian flags seem concentrated behind the banner “National Coordination No Nato”. A group that would come from Milan and march proudly to defend the theocracy of the ayatollahs under attack by the Americans and Israelis.
In Italy, the friends of the Islamic Republic, in the hands of the Pasdaran, are part of three centers between Rome and Milan led above all by our compatriots who have converted to the Koran, who often come from far-right circles. Unlike the pro-PAL, who wink at Hamas and largely attract left-wing extremists.
«The common denominator that unites Khomeini narratives and propaganda with far-right and far-left ideology is hostility towards the United States, Israel and the West in general», explains Giovanni Giacalone, who published an analysis on Shiite centers in Italy for the American institute “Washington outsider center for information warfare”.
On March 11, the one called Imam Mahdi, inaugurated in Rome Tuscolano in 2018 (but the association has existed since 2004), posted a statement on the killing of the supreme leader of Iran. “The cowardly and criminal assassination, at the hands of the United States and Israel, of the eminent religious authority and Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, has inflicted a deep wound of pain and dismay not only on the Iranian people and on every true Muslim” reads the obituary. Demonstrating the close connection with the Iranian regime, the center congratulates «the Assembly of Experts on the wise nomination of Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei (his son, ed.) as the new Supreme Leader of the Revolution, we pray to Almighty God to keep him on the same bright path, traced by his predecessors with tears, joy and blood».
The vast majority of the Islamic population in Italy is Sunni. It is estimated that just 2% of the 1.7 million Muslims are Shiites, a minority sect even in global Islam and considered by Sunni extremists to be traitors to the true faith.
The inauguration of the Imam Mahdi center in 2018 brought together delegations from the United Kingdom, France, Austria, India and Madagascar in Rome. The Gnosis magazine, published by AISI, our internal intelligence, has reconstructed the genesis of the Shiite center born from a split of the Italian branch of the Khomeinist Ahl al Bait network. The founder was the Neapolitan Luigi De Martino, once a militant of the New Order, who converted to Islam in 1985 with the name of Ammar. Imam Mahdi has as his secretary and spokesperson another right-wing extremist convert, Marco “Hussein” Morelli, who refused to speak to Panorama. The conversion is presented by Morelli himself as «a personal spiritual and ideological choice, a rejection of Western secularism and an adherence to the Shiite principles of justice, resistance and anti-imperialism».
The center of Rome is strongly aligned not only during the ongoing war. On October 3, 2024, it organized an event in memory of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader killed by Israeli bombs in the Shiite stronghold neighborhood of Beirut. Two months later he presented Khamenei’s autobiography, entitled The Seeds of the Revolution, at the Cavour conference center in the capital. And in 2023 he published the book Qasem Soleimani a fighter of God dedicated to the most legendary commander of the Pasdaran, incinerated by an American drone during the first Trump presidency, on the road to Baghdad airport. The volume was presented in Milan with the Iranian consul. Giacalone has no doubts that «Imam Mahdi in Rome is the main machine of Iranian propaganda in our country».
Also in 2023, the Shiite center hosted a meeting on the “Liberation of Southern Lebanon” by Hezbollah with guest of honor Hassan Assi, president of an association of friends of the Land of Cedars and activist of the 5 Star Movement. Among the speakers, Maurizio Falessi, former terrorist of the Communist Fighting Units, spoke. In 1982 he was sentenced to 23 years for an armed gang, attempted murder and complicity in kidnapping. A fugitive in Lebanon under the protective wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he was arrested in 2004 at Cairo airport.
«In the Italian Shiite environment, an important role is played by converts who act as the main promoters of an ideology that seeks to attract both the far right and the far left, always framed in an “anti-imperialist” and “anti-Zionist” narrative”, reiterates Giacalone, an expert on the jihadist phenomenon.
The president of the Imam Mahdi center is Damiano “Abbas” Di Palma, who rose through the ranks of the Shiite clergy and became hajjatulislam, just one step below the ayatollah. Florentine by origin, he studied for three years at the Al Mustafa international university in Qom, the Shiite holy city where Khomeini was born. The university is under American sanctions. The American counter-terrorism agency accuses her of links with the Pasdaran.
The US is convinced: «Al-Mustafa International University, which boasts branches in more than 50 countries, facilitates the intelligence operations of the Quds Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards by allowing its student body, which includes large numbers of foreigners and Americans, to serve as an international recruiting network».
The Italian branch of the university, the Institute of Islamic Studies at Mustafa, in Rome, is directed by Hanieh Tarkian, the veiled professor, who plays a central role in the ayatollahs’ network of supporters. On March 4, on his Facebook page he branded as “traitors” the Iranians who celebrated the American and Israeli attack. And the next day he shared a funeral post for Khamenei’s death with a comment like this: “The blood shed by the righteous is never in vain.”
On March 28, Professor Tarkian, a “geopolitical analyst”, was invited to Lamezia Terme by the right-wing association Cantiere laboratory. The president, Vittorio Gigliotti, spoke of «a public meeting that highlights all the lies that the mass media do not tell, preferring well-orchestrated disinformation and censorship imposed by the globalist lobbies which have their criminal summit in the United States and Israel».
In Milan the Imam Alì center, connected to the Iranian consulate, is led by Mullah Ali Faeznia. On the website we read that «in 2010 the cultural center was born, a point of reference for Iranian spiritual and community life». In July last year the League, with MEPs Silvia Sardone and Anna Maria Cisint, asked to «pay particular attention to the “Imam Ali” cultural center in Milan».
Other supporters of the ayatollahs are Paolo Jafar Rada, director of the international study center “Dimore della Sapienza”, a Shiite convert, who organizes conferences on Julius Evola and René Guénon. The Sicilian Nicola “Hasan” Di Cola, converted like his father, published the book The Golden Dome. Journey to Iraq on the path of the Martyrs. The story of the mass pilgrimage for the 40th anniversary of Ashura, the celebration of the death of Ali, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, from Sicily to Baghdad up to Najaf and Karbala, the holy Iraqi Shiite cities.
The centers are part of “a large Shiite Khomeinist network that includes Iranian citizens, Pakistanis and Italian converts,” says Giacalone. «These actors make extensive use of social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Telegram to spread the narrative and publicize events» pro-Iran.
In June last year Tarkian, the veiled teacher, her husband, Abolfazl Emami, an Iranian cleric, and the ambassador to Rome of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Reza Sabouri, participated in an event in Rimini organized by the European Identity association and the Cerchio editions. Friends of Iran spoke about “Gnosis and Islam: Paths of Inner Knowledge”. The ambassador praised the figure of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic revolution of 1979. On March 26, after almost a month of war, Sabouri was more direct and pragmatic in an interview with the Antidiplomatic website, with a veiled warning: «As long as Italy does not participate in hostile actions, it will not be considered an enemy country».
