Italy increases security at Vatican, subways
ROME – Police stepped up the alert level around the Vatican, subway workers removed trash bins and an around-the-clock security monitoring system was installed Friday at Italian airports after the London bombings and threats that Italy could be the next U.S. ally targeted by terrorist.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Italy would begin withdrawing 300 troops from its 3,000-strong Iraq contingent in September. He denied that the withdrawal was linked to any terrorist threats against Italy, but said he wasn’t underestimating the danger.
Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu convened top security and law enforcement officers for a second day of talks and “particular attention” was paid to the possible threat to Italy and preventive measures that had to be taken, the ministry said.
British installations in Italy were the top priorities. But some 13,246 sites around the country – including U.S. and NATO bases, telecommunications centers, public utilities and the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics site – were also under special surveillance and had been since the beginning of the year, the ministry said.
“Concerns never end,” Luciano Barra, deputy CEO of the Turin Olympics organizing committee, said in a phone interview from Singapore. “We have good relations with the Interior Ministry and when we return to Italy we will see what can be done.”
While there was little visible increased police presence in downtown Rome, Italy appeared to be taking seriously the threat contained in a purported claim of responsibility for Thursday’s London bombings.
A group calling itself “The Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe” said the bombings were punishment for British involvement in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and said Italy and Denmark would be attacked for their support of the U.S.-led coalitions in both countries, too.
“Slaughter in London, alarm in Italy,” read the headline of the Il Messaggero daily. “London hit, fears for Italy,” said La Stampa.
Acknowledging the threat, Berlusconi warned that Italy was at risk and called for “attentive and speedy vigilance.”
Berlusconi indicated that the intention to start pulling Italian troops from Iraq was not the consequence of threats against Italy, saying that he had “grown used to them, even though I do not underestimate these threats.”
Politicians from the right and left who have long demanded Italian troops return from Iraq stepped up their calls following the new threats.
Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli of the right-wing Northern League party said Friday the time had come for the United Nations to begin discussing “the progressive withdrawal of troops, beginning with our contingent, perhaps by September.”
“It’s evident that after New York, Madrid and London, Italy represents the most probable next objective of the terrorists,” he said. “The time has come to begin to think also about our house, and to use the same resources currently committed in Iraq to prevent and combat possible attacks on our territory.”
Berlusconi is a staunch ally of President Bush and sent about 3,000 troops to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein to help rebuild the country. Italy also has about 910 troops in Afghanistan.
On Friday, the civil aviation authority said it had installed an around-the-clock office to monitor security at Italian airports, where the security level was already raised to a maximum a day earlier.
Workers in Rome’s metropolitan subway system said trash bins had been removed as a precaution.
Carabinieri paramilitary police with bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled outside Berlusconi’s residence in central Rome, and police said they had stepped up their alert around the Vatican, where security is already heavy and pilgrims and tourists pass through metal detectors to get into St. Peter’s Basilica.