Italy faces a greater risk of a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists in the run-up to general elections in April, according to Italian News Agency ANSA Friday quoting a report prepared by the country's secret service.

 

The secret service report warned in particular about the possibility of attacks with radioactive devices, given that cases of trafficking in such material had risen across Europe last year.

 

Such an attack, it said, "might not cause heavy losses but would have a devastating psychological effect."

 

In its six-month report to Parliament, the Italian secret service said that the riskiest time for a possible attack would be either now, with the Olympics taking place in Turin, or just before the April 9-10 vote.

 

But the man in charge of the service, Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, played down the reported threat.

 

Pisanu said there had been no signs of an attack brewing for the Olympics.

 

"In the last two months there have been no signs of a particular threat," the minister said, adding that security would be slightly eased at the Olympic sites.

 

The secret service report said that "freelance" Islamic terrorists posed the greatest threat because they were generally born in the West and had a better understanding of the society they lived in.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2006)