Trevor Stanley

Italian police have arrested around 140 people in Milan, many of them migrants, and seized a quantity of explosives, in the wake of Thursday's bombings in London.

Italy, as a former colonial power and a country divided over its significant contribution to the Iraq coalition, has been assessed by al-Qaeda as one of the weak links of the Western alliance, alongside Spain.

It is normal for any police or intelligence operation tracking organised criminals or subversives to leave suspects 'in the wild' and gather further intelligence by observing their movements and communications. It would appear Italy has determined that this is an appropriate time to 'draw in the nets'.