Italy deploys troops after Neapolitan mafia violence
Six African immigrants were killed last week in a suspected Camorra drug feud north of Naples. The military task force will man checkpoints and reinforce police.
ROME — The Italian government ordered the deployment of a military task force today to fight a wave of violence by the Neapolitan mafia that culminated last week in the slayings of six African immigrants in a suspected feud over drug turf.
The decision to send the military to the province of Caserta, north of Naples, shows that the ruthless clans of the Camorra, as the mafia in Naples is known, pose a formidable challenge to the government. The last time soldiers were used to combat organized crime was in southern Italy after Sicilian gangsters assassinated two top anti-mafia judges in 1992.
The cabinet today approved the proposal by Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa, who said that the 500 soldiers were needed because of a "criminal emergency." Most of the troops will be deployed to Caserta for three months and perform duties such as manning checkpoints and reinforcing the 400 additional police officers who were sent Monday, La Russa said.
"We fear there could be other episodes of violence; this is why we increased the pressure in that area in order to neutralize the firepower of the groups," said Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, speaking on the RAI television network. "In the area of Caserta there is a real Camorra civil war, and therefore we want the state to regain the upper hand in that area."
The rise of Neapolitan gangsters has resulted in brazen killings of rivals, witnesses and other foes as clans impose control over rackets including the drug trade and illegal dumping of toxic waste. Violence in Naples two years ago caused Italian leaders to consider sending troops, but the proposal was ultimately rejected.
This time, authorities responded to months of slayings attributed to the Casalesi, a Camorra clan whose wild, swaggering exploits contrast with the brutal, but more disciplined and discreet, style of the Sicilian Mafia. The latest violence in the city of Castelvolturno, a hub of the drug trade in the province of Caserta, also reflects the new ethnic structure of a criminal underworld being reshaped by immigration.
Last Thursday, four gunmen with automatic weapons killed the owner of an amusement arcade in Castelvolturno. The assailants then drove to a clothing store operated by West African immigrants and fired hundreds of rounds into the store, killing three Ghanians, two Liberians and a man from Togo.
