DEBKAfile: Al Qaeda now threatens Rome: PM Berlusconi personally addressed

DEBKAfile Intelligence

25 July 2005

The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades who claimed the two London bombing attacks published a fresh warning Monday, July 25: “After London, it is Rome’s turn.” The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is warned that by failing to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq, he would by his own hand “turn Rome into a graveyard.”

The statement run on the Internet threatens the Italian capital with harsher and more painful strikes than the London attacks. “As long as a single Italian soldier remains in Italy, you the prime minister can look forward to nothing but “more and more blood.”

DEBKAfile adds: All the European capitals have placed their security and emergency services of maximum terror alert. London too is bracing for more terrorist attacks. One of al Qaeda’s prime targets is expected to be the Vatican, which the terrorist organization sees as a world center of heresy.

An earlier warning by the same group gave Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and Italy until August 15 to pull their soldiers out of Iraq.