Italy faces a greater risk of a terrorist attack by Islamic
extremists in the run-up to general elections in April, according
to Italian News Agency ANSA Friday quoting a report prepared by the
country's secret service.
The secret service report warned in particular about the
possibility of attacks with radioactive devices, given that cases
of trafficking in such material had risen across Europe last
year.
Such an attack, it said, "might not cause heavy losses but would
have a devastating psychological effect."
In its six-month report to Parliament, the Italian secret
service said that the riskiest time for a possible attack would be
either now, with the Olympics taking place in Turin, or just before
the April 9-10 vote.
But the man in charge of the service, Italian Interior Minister
Giuseppe Pisanu, played down the reported threat.
Pisanu said there had been no signs of an attack brewing for the
Olympics.
"In the last two months there have been no signs of a particular
threat," the minister said, adding that security would be slightly
eased at the Olympic sites.
The secret service report said that "freelance" Islamic
terrorists posed the greatest threat because they were generally
born in the West and had a better understanding of the society they
lived in.
(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2006)
