As officials across Europe scrambled to beef up security on Friday in the wake of the London bombings, the tension was clearly greatest here in Italy, a country many experts regard as the next terrorism target.
On Thursday night and Friday, leaders of Italy's Parliament, Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, Secret Service and military met nearly round the clock, "evaluating the terrorist menace in Italy and strengthening preventive security measures," the Interior Ministry said.
The pace of the meetings was a tacit acknowledgment of what most of the Italian news media highlighted on Friday, in the words of the daily Il Messaggero: "Now an attack in our house is more likely than ever."
The reasons are simple: Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has been one of the US' staunchest allies in Iraq, committing thousands of troops, despite widespread popular opposition. Also, Berlusconi faces a difficult re-election campaign in the coming months. It is the same sort of situation that preceded the train bombings in Madrid in March last year that killed 191 people.
"Obviously, we are a target because we are engaged in Iraq and we have elections in the next year," said Francesco Sidoti, a security expert at the University of L'Aquila. "Everyone is thinking about that."
The Spanish terrorist attack occurred three days before a national election. After the bombings, the Socialist candidate, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero -- who opposed the war in Iraq -- won handily, beating the conservative incumbent. He immediately withdrew Spanish troops.
While some Italian opposition politicians used the occasion to urge Berlusconi to remove troops from Iraq without delay, others said he should stick to the current course. On Friday, he repeated his previously stated intention to begin removing some troops in September.
Though the Italian Interior Ministry did not release any new security plans on Friday, it did reveal for the first time a few components of its evolving anti-terrorism programs. They include, for example, the addition of thousands of police officers and soldiers to guard potential terrorist targets.
At the airport, border agents pored over the passports and suitcases of incoming passengers, especially those arriving from the Middle East. In Rome's subway system, the police were out in larger than usual numbers.
"I hope it won't happen here, but now the only big one missing is Rome," said a security guard at the station under the Spanish Steps, who refused to give his name.
Though anti-terrorism in Italy is largely the responsibility of national officials, the city of Milan was on "maximum" alert, said a spokesman for the Milan Prefecture on Friday.
"We have a plan that we put into place after 9/11 and perfected after Madrid -- when we saw that a European capital could be attacked -- and it calls for more intense patrolling of sensitive targets," he said.
Video cameras already oversee high-risk areas like train stations and "neighborhoods with a high density of immigrants," said the municipal security commissioner.
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