ROME Italian police on Friday arrested 10 people and were looking for eight others suspected of belonging to an armed group linked to al Qaeda who had plotted attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and at least at one point the Vatican. 
 
 Some of the suspects, who are all Pakistanis and Afghans, were arrested in early morning raids across Italy. Police burst into the home of the group's suspected spiritual leader, in the northern city of Bergamo, a video released by them showed. 
 
 Though the 18 suspects were plotting attacks mainly in their native countries, phone taps suggest the Vatican was also a target, said Mauro Mura, chief prosecutor of the Sardinian city of Cagliari, where the group had its headquarters. 
 
 Mura said officials had indications of a possible plot for an attack against the Vatican in 2010 by members of the group, who had continued to operate across Italy for years after that. 
 
 He said there were indications of a plan for a suicide attack in a crowded place. Italian officials have for years feared a possible attack by militants in St. Peter's Square and have increased security there. 
 
 In the tapped conversations, the suspects discuss "a big jihad in Italy", added Mario Carta, head of the police unit on the case. They reference the word "baba", which could mean the pope, Carta said. 
 
 "We don't have proof, we have strong suspicion," that the Holy See was a possible target, he told reporters at a press conference. 
 
 Carta told Reuters by telephone that the group in subsequent years "realized that we were watching their movements". 
 
 Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the hypothetical attacks were in the past, and that the new disclosures were not a matter for concern. 
 
 But Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said: "We are all afraid because we don't know what can happen." 
 
 Italy, like other European countries, has been on heightened alert for possible terrorist schemes in the wake of the January attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. 
 
 European capitals are particularly worried about possible "sleeper" militants, apparently living normal lives in their countries, who may at some point in the future be activated to stage attacks at home or abroad. 
 
 Italian officials are also concerned that members of terrorist groups might be hiding among the thousands of migrants who arrive on Europe's shores every week. 
 
 MANY WEAPONS 
 
 Outlining the investigation at the news conference, Mura said the group had a large number of weapons and numerous followers willing to carry out acts of terrorism. 
 
 Police wire taps had determined that two people among the 18 targeted by arrest warrants were suspected of being part of a group that had protected al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. special forces at his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011, police said in a statement. 
 
 The group supported the "armed struggle against the West", and wanted to incite a popular uprising against the Pakistani government so it would stop its backing of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. 
 
 The United States has withdrawn most of its forces from Afghanistan. However, a relatively small number remains for training and special operations, while Washington is also carrying out drone strikes on Taliban militants. 
 
 The money was sent to Pakistan by members of the group who managed to avoid Italy's currency control regulations. In one case, 55,268 euros ($60,160) were carried to Pakistan on a flight from Rome to Islamabad. 
 
 But police said much of the money was moved through the trust-based transfer system known as hawala, the banking system of choice in Afghanistan's cash-based economy. 
 
 The imam arrested in Bergamo is suspected of having been a point person for the fund raising, who collected funds purportedly for religious purposes from Pakistanis and Afghans in Italy, police said. 
 
 Some of those under investigation were believed to be involved in attacks that have already taken place in Pakistan, including one that killed more than 100 people in a market in the northwestern frontier city of Peshawar in 2009, the police added. 
 
 The group arranged for Pakistanis and Afghans to get into Italy on work contracts or as refugees seeking asylum and later sent some to cities in northern Europe, police said. 
 
 (Reporting By Philip Pullella and Alessandra Galloni; Additional reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by David Stamp, Sophie Walker and Giles Elgood) ||||| Rome (CNN) Italian authorities launched a "vast anti-terrorism operation" Friday, going after suspects associated with al Qaeda who allegedly had discussed a range of targets, including the Vatican . 
 
 Wiretaps and other intelligence revealed that the group -- some of whom had direct contact with Osama bin Laden 's network -- planned to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as in Italy, according to Caligari Chief Prosecutor Mauro Mura. 
 
 Evidence indicated the Vatican was among the targets considered, police said. Talk of this took place March 2010, around the time a possible suicide bomber from Afghanistan entered Italy before leaving the European nation, Mura said. 
 
 A prospective attack may have been foiled by a spring 2010 search of one of the alleged al Qaeda affiliates' homes, Italy's ANSA news agency reported , citing police in Caligari. 
 
 When asked about this report, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said "it seems that we are talking about a hypothesis of the year 2010 that didn't come to fruition. 
 
 "So this matter is not relevant today," Lombardi added, "and there is no particular reason for ... alarm." 
 
 Police: 2 gave support to network guarding bin Laden 
 
 Two of the arrested suspects gave logistical support to the network that guarded bin Laden before his death in Pakistan in 2011, according to police. 
 
 Police said, too, that some of the suspects were involved in a 2009 Pakistani market bombing in which more than 100 people were killed. 
 
 The suspects targeted Friday had been under surveillance for years, some as far back as 2005, police said. 
 
 On Friday, Italian State Police closed in, carrying out raids in seven provinces in what they called a first-of-its-kind operation. One of the raids targeted the alleged terrorist cell's headquarters on the island of Sardinia. 
 
 Police: Some suspects were involved in deadly 2009 Pakistan blast 
 
 The operation was expected to result in the arrest of 18 people, most of them from Pakistan, said spokesman Paolo Meloni, who represents the police in Sassari, Sardinia, where the investigation is being coordinated. 
 
 Some suspects had an abundance of weapons and moved cash around the world, police said. One was apprehended on a flight from Italy to Pakistan while carrying 55,000 euros, or nearly $60,000, police said. 
 
 Meloni said the provinces in which the raids were carried out included Frosinone and Macerata, which are in central Italy, as well as Bergamo, in the north. 
 
 Some of the suspects are believed to have been involved in the 2009 car bombing in Pakistan, Meloni said. In that bombing, in a bazaar in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, 137 people were killed and more than 200 were injured. 
 
 Still other suspects are suspected of involvement in migrant trafficking, he said. Police said the group tried to recruit to its cause the migrants it transported.
– Italian police say they have taken down a terror cell comprised of businessmen who financed al-Qaeda from Sardinia. Counterterrorism agents arrested 18 Pakistani and Afghan nationals in seven provinces today in "one of the most important operations we ever conducted," the lead investigator tells NBC News. "We are talking people with connections with al-Qaeda at the highest level" who police say intended to stage terror strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan and funneled money to Pakistan using an ancient trust-based transfer system called hawala. Most of the businessmen appeared to be leading normal lives, but two are believed to have once been part of Osama bin Laden's network of guards, Reuters reports. In a wiretapped conversation, another claimed bin Laden personally sent him to Italy. "We believe they were in touch with people who knew the whereabouts of bin Laden, to the point that they would frequently ask over the phone about his health while he was in hiding," the investigator says. Some members had allegedly planned an attack against Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in 2010—which never came to fruition—while police say others were involved in a 2009 market bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed more than 100 people. The cell, headquartered in Sassari, Sardinia, reports CNN, allegedly had "an abundant amount of weapons" and wanted to support attacks that would erode the Pakistan government's support of US forces in Afghanistan. A press conference is scheduled for later today.