Italy will boost security measures
at sensitive targets and areas where people tend to gather after
the Barcelona and Cambrils terror attacks that killed a total of
14 people, Interior Minister Marco Minniti said Friday.
The interior ministry said attention was "extremely high" but
the "threat level" had not changed.
Minniti was speaking after a meeting of the Strategic
Anti-Terrorism Analysis Committee.
Premier Paolo Gentiloni telephoned Spanish Premier Mariano
Rajoy to voice Italy's condolences, friendship and solidarity
over the attacks, government sources said.
Gentiloni stressed unity and firmness towards terror, which
will never beat freedom and democracy.
Rajoy assured the utmost collaboration with Italy and the
other countries hit by the attacks.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella wrote to Spanish King
Felipe VI, voicing "horror and repulsion".
Spain and Italy were united in a "common pain" over the
attack, Mattarella said.
He voiced "great concern" over the "dramatic" attack, which
was "further, execrable proof of the cowardice of the
terrorists".
Mattarella said Italy was determined to work with Spain, its
EU partners and the whole international community, in a "fight,
without quarter being given, against terrorism and all forms of
violent extremism, in defence of the common values and
democratic freedoms, as well as the security of our countries".
Premier Paolo Gentiloni tweeted "#Barcelona Italy remembers
Bruno Gulotta and Luca Russo and rallies round their families.
Freedom will beat the barbarity of terrorism".
Pope Francis condemned the attack as an "inhuman act" and
"blind violence, a grave offence to the Creator", in a
telegramme of condolences sent to Barcelona Archbishop Juan José
Omella y Omella.
Francis said he was praying that the international community
would work "with determination for peace and harmony in the
world".
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