A statement on Tuesday said police searched the man’s house in a village in Hani i Elezit, 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of capital Pristina, where they found a pistol, a rifle and some electronic devices.
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Three of the men were arrested in a series of raids in northern Italy, while the Kosovo police detained the alleged leader in the Balkan country.
Italy’s top security official, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, said the expulsions were being carried out in cases where the evidence wasn’t deemed strong enough to seek prosecution. The operation targets Kosovan residents suspected in “commending terrorism” and “inciting racial hatred”, the newspaper said. Last week it expelled four Moroccans suspected of promoting extremism.
The investigations that were concluded with the today’s arrests were conducted by the Italian anti-terrorism department of Brescia.
The group posted pictures of themselves online with weapons “in circumstances characteristic of Islamic State fighters”.
Investigators said the suspects had posted photographs on the internet showing them brandishing weapons and that they were radicalised.
All four allegedly often visited a jihadist Facebook group whose members are known to be in Syria, where a few hundred Kosovo-born volunteers have joined IS.
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“They were threatening the Pope, celebrating the recent attacks in Paris and threatening the former USA ambassador to Kosovo”, said Carmine Esposito, a police chief in the northern Italian city of Brescia, the centre of the investigation.
