Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Wednesday that he had ordered a stepping up of security precautions across the country in the wake of Wednesday's suicide bomb attack on Italian peacekeepers in Iraq.

"I have ordered an intensification of the security measures already in force," he said.

Speaking after meeting with anti-terrorism officials in the capital, he announced that the country's top security and police chiefs would meet in Rome on Thursday to assess the situation.

"We are considering very carefully what the repercussions of this terrible attack could be in Italy," Pisanu continued.

"I have always said that Islamic terrorists in Italy normally have a supporting role but I have never ruled out the possibility that individuals or small groups might strike on our territory," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency November 13, 2003)