We can't lower our guard - Alfano (3)

(ANSA) - Washington, March 22 - Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said about Wednesday's terror attack in London that "if it were terrorism, it would be a city struck again because we know and recall that it's not the first time London has been attacked. "We don't have a possibility of lowering our guard". Speaking on the sidelines of a US anti-ISIS summit, Alfano said he had "activated all the foreign ministry's structures to verify the possible presence, which we hope does not exist, of co-nationals among the injured". No Italians were involved in the attack, which killed at least four people including the assailant, the Italian consulate in the British capital said.
    Premier Paolo Gentiloni is in constant touch with the foreign ministry and the Italian embassy in London over developments in the terror attack at Westminster. sources said.
    Gentiloni said Italy "is close to the British people and government regarding the attack that struck the heart of London and its democratic institutions." He said "I express the condolences of the Italian government and my personal ones to the families of the victims, and our sympathies with the injured. Italy and the United Kingdom are side by side in condemning and firmly responding to all forms of terrorism".
    Four people including the assailant were killed and some 20 injured in the attack in London, Scotland Yard said.
    The suspected terrorist, who was described as a 40-year-old Asian, drove his SUV into a crowd on Westminster Bridge, killing two people including a woman and injuring 20 others, some critically, before stabbing dead a policeman in the British Parliament compound. The identity of the fourth victim is not yet known.
    The assailant was shot dead after trying to get into parliament, from which Premier Theresa May was evacuated.
    Interior Minister Marco Minniti on Wednesday convened for tomorrow morning an extraordinary meeting of Italy's strategic anti-terrorism analysis committee (CASA). Minniti will chair the meeting of police and intelligence chiefs.