US Embassy in Rome Closed for Security Reasons until Tuesday, the embassy said Saturday.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday that Washington had closed its embassy in the Italian capital and sent employees home for security reasons after the United States issued a "worldwide caution" to Americans, warning of possible terrorist threats and urging them to increase vigilance regarding their personal safety.
There was no apparent tightening of security around the embassy building on Rome's famed Via Veneto where restaurants and cafes remained open and tourists and residents walked around freely.
The closure Saturday -- a public holiday in Italy -- and Monday is the first for security reasons of the US embassy in Rome. It had stayed open even during the worst days of terrorist attacks in Italy in the 1970s and 80s and during the 1991 Gulf war.
Italian authorities had not been informed of the closure.
"If an alert is and was justified, it would have been appropriate to inform Italian security officials," said the newspaper La Stampa in a comment.
"The move of our US partner looks like an act of mistrust," the paper added.
The closure comes amid heated debate in Italy about a possible link between the deaths of Italian troops having served in the Balkans and the use there by the United States during NATO campaigns of weapons coated with depleted uranium.
But in Washington Boucher refused to say Friday whether the embassy had received a specific threat or information about any possible risk. He said the closure did not affect the US consulates in Italy which are located in Florence, Milan and Naples.
Diplomats in Rome said however there was a "serious risk" that a group in the Balkans, linked to Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, was planning an attack on the US embassy in Rome.
The trial of four men charged in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam opened in New York Wednesday.
Bin Laden is blamed for financing terrorist groups and masterminding the twin US embassy bombings in Africa and is among the 10 most wanted men in the United States, while remaining a hero to many in the Islamic world -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
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