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Italy searching for 5 terror suspects after US tip-off

Thursday, 19 November 2015 4:47 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 19 November 2015 5:35 PM ]

Policemen and Italian soldiers patrol in front of the Colosseum in Rome on November 19, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni says the country’s police forces are searching for five terror suspects after a warning by the US about possible assaults on tourist sites in the capital Rome and Milan.

Gentiloni made the comments on Thursday, a day after the US embassy in Rome warned Italy that a number of landmark sites as well as other places, including restaurants theaters and hotels, could be the “potential target” of terror attacks.

A statement published on the American mission’s website said “terrorist groups may possibly utilize similar methods used in the recent” terror attacks that left nearly 130 people dead in the French capital Paris.

According to Italian media, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had also provided the Italian authorities with the names of five terror suspects, but it did not give any specific details on any plots.

“We always take such signals of alarm very seriously, especially when they come from the United States, and since yesterday afternoon, our security forces have been working to find the five people,” Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said to an Italian TV channel on Thursday.

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni (Photo by AFP)

He added that the Italian Interior Ministry “has explained many times that we are at a very high level of alert covering symbolic sites, places where people gather, from stadiums to cathedrals, and St Peter’s in particular, which were, among others, the places highlighted by the FBI yesterday.”

Italy has deployed 700 extra troops to the streets of Rome in addition to the 1,300 soldiers already stationed there.

The November 13 Paris attacks, which were claimed by the Daesh Takfiri terror group, has left Europe in shock and fear, prompting security services in the continent to be on high alert.

On Thursday, Belgian police in the capital Brussels also arrested nine people allegedly connected to the Paris attacks.

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www.presstv.co.uk