(ANSA) - Rome's readiness to deal with terrorism was tested on Monday with the staging of multiple, simulated attacks in the rain-drenched capital which left 26 people 'dead'.
The anti-terrorism drill - the second biggest ever held in Italy - involved a fake suicide bomb attack and two simulated explosions, one on the underground train system and the other on a bus.
The drill, which was ordered by Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu in the wake of the July terrorist bombings in London, caused extensive disruption that was made worse by heavy rain.
The exercises began at 9.30 when a dummy wearing khaki overalls and a balaclava exploded on a pedestrian crossing in front of the Colosseum, not far from the entrance to an underground train station.
A nearby car was simultaneously set on fire. Within minutes the area was sealed off by police as ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene and volunteers from the civil protection department pretended to be dead or injured. Fifteen minutes later, a tear-gas canister exploded in a carriage on an underground train at Piazza della Repubblica not far from the city's central Termini station.
Smoke poured out of the Repubblica station onto the square as police and emergency services quickly cleared the area of traffic and sealed off roads. Some 30 mintues later, the final simulated attack took place on a bus travelling between the tourist hotspots of Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori.
In the first 'explosion', 13 volunteers pretended to be dead and 37 injured. The death toll from the second incident was lower, with 8 'dead' and 60 'injured'. The bus explosion left 5 'dead' and 65 'injured'. Dozens of other people were treated for fake panic symptoms.
The exercises brought traffic in the city centre to a standstill, with entire areas cordoned off by police and emergency services. One of the capital's two underground train lines was also closed down for the morning. Many people were left with the only option of walking to work in the rain.
OFFICIALS SAY DRILL A SUCCESS DESPITE 'DISOBBEDIENTI'
But Rome's top administrative officer, Prefect Achille Serra, said the drill had gone well and praised Romans for their "great maturity" in coping with the disruption. "Citizens understood that we were doing it for their safety and security," he said. The drill appeared to have exposed no serious flaws and Serra's only criticism was that emergency services could have arrived a few seconds earlier at the scenes of the staged attacks.
Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, who joined Serra in co-ordinating and monitoring the exercises, also expressed satisfaction, saying that they had shown that "(emergency) organisation works in Rome". But there were some polemics over a protest staged by the Disobbedienti (the Disobedient), a group of anti-capitalist activists.
The Disobbedienti, who among other things want Italy to withdraw its troops from Iraq, set up a road block near Piazza Navona which delayed the start of the third and final exercise by some 15 minutes. The leader of the protest, Guido Lutrario, told reporters that the deployment of Italian troops in Iraq was exposing the country to the risk of a terrorist attack. "There's only one way to protect citizens and that is to pull our troops out of Iraq," he said.
"This is just a propaganda exercise... They've called in personnel from across the entire region... On an ordinary day, there's no way that Rome would be ready to cope with such an emergency," he said.
There were also reports of minor clashes between police and the protesters, five of whom were arrested. Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli said that "only an imbecile, and one who is on the side of the terrorists, would try and stop a drill which could help save lives in the future." Italy's first ever major anti-terrorism drill was carried out in Milan on September 23 and involved two simultaneous fake train blasts and a simulated attack on an airport bus complete with hostage-taking.
Minister Pisanu has confirmed that drills will also be held in Naples and Turin. He said the outcome of the exercises would be examined and compared and the conclusions made public at a subsequent press conference. While Italy's emergency services have been tested in terrorism drills before, these have only involved individual units and nothing on such a major scale has ever been attempted.
When the drills were announced in August, there was immediate media speculation that the government had information of a specific threat. But Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a firm ally of US President George W. Bush, brushed off these concerns, saying that Italy was no more at risk than any other European nation.
"This is an alert that affects all Western countries," he said. "There is no individual country that can say it is more or less at risk."
