Roundup: Italian authorities, experts united against terrorism menace

Saturday was a sequence of frantic meetings and talks in Italy, where government authorities and experts called themselves shocked by the terror attacks in Paris and increased security measures in the country.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the Italian government raised alert level to two (which comes before the highest level one declared during an ongoing attack), meaning that special military forces are ready to immediately intervene at need.

Security measures were reinforced throughout the country and controls tightened at borders.

"No country is at zero risk, and from today we consider the menace as further increased," Alfano told a press conference following a special meeting attended by police and intelligence services chiefs.

The provisional death toll of Paris attacks is 129 and 352 injured, among whom at least 99 in very critical situations, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins announced Saturday evening.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called on representatives of different political forces in Italy to join hands against terrorism. In a video message, he stressed there are no words to describe the horror of what happened in Paris. "They hit France but in fact they hit the entire humanity," Renzi said.

Meanwhile the Italian Foreign Ministry in a statement published on its website asked Italian nationals who are currently in Paris to follow the instructions of local authorities and avoid any movement.

A man and a woman from central Italy, Massimiliano Natalucci and his friend, were reported to have been slightly injured in the attacks, according to ministry sources.

Another Italian girl, Valeria Solesin, 28, was reported as "missing" after her boyfriend and other friends lost sight of her at the Bataclan concert hall, where the biggest attack came with at least 100 people killed.

"Let's wait, her name is not in the victims list," her mother told journalists.

In a statement posted on a social network, the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy, which oversees the Mosque of Rome, defined as "unique for blindness and brutality" the Paris attacks. Later on Saturday, a pacific march took place in the heart of Rome attended by authorities, citizens and representatives of the Islamic world. Flags were being flown at half-mast in sign of mourning.

"It was a military operation in the heart of France, in the heart of Europe, in the heart of the West," said Domenico Quirico, an experienced war journalist at La Stampa newspaper who was imprisoned in Syria by extremists for months in 2013.

"Terrorists have started a new phase, different from the traditional one of putting bombs in airplanes," Quirico said.

"They have now brought the war into the heart of their enemy, showing their enormous potentiality of being perilous, and showing that we are vulnerable," he added.

Echoing his words, other experts said the Paris attacks have highlighted that terrorists are able to hit the Western world easier and with less technological investment compared to the past.

Francesco Strazzari, a professor of international relations at the Pisa-based Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, said the Western world needs joint efforts and full collaboration to fight extremism.

According to Sergio Romano, a columnist for Italy's largest circulation newspaper Corriere della Sera and former ambassador, the IS is going through difficulty with various of its leaders neutralized in recent times, and the Western world has all the possibilities to fight the organization in its weak points.

General Luciano Piacentini, an intelligence expert, noted the intelligence work is extremely difficult in a country like France.

Italy is at risk as well, he told Rai State television, especially given the imminent start of the Catholic Church's Jubilee on Dec. 8.

"Rome has been indicated by the IS propaganda as a metaphor and a symbol," Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni commented.

"Until now we have worked very well with the intelligence and security forces, but certainly the menaces cannot be underestimated," he warned. Endit