Algerian terrorists planned attack on U.S. embassy

Italian newspapers reported Sunday that three Algerian terrorists had been planning a bomb attack at the embassy on the capital's sweeping Via Veneto, adding that the group had connections with international terrorist Osama bin Laden. The attack would have involved a suicide bombing by one of the men, the reports said quoting Italian and American intelligence sources.

Soon after the Rome embassy was closed, the U.S. State Department warned citizens abroad to beware of possible attacks. "It was a very credible threat," Robert Callahan, the political adviser at the U.S. embassy, told La Repubblica. "But it is not just bin Laden. He is the number one danger. But there are many more organisations that want to attack American facilities."

The Italian reports said the terrorists had targeted a specific person at the embassy. Because of the threat security was stepped up at U.S. facilities across Italy. Controls were also tightened at Rome's main airport with most attention paid to flights heading to or arriving from the United States or the Middle East.

Washington has closed several embassies and consulates around the world for days at a time for security concerns, especially after violence erupted in the Middle East in late September and following the October 12 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, in which 17 people were killed.

Last week the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, Canada, had a security scare when workers found a mysterious package and a scan showed the box contained electronics. It turned out the box contained two Nintendo video game sets. In 1998 bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania left a total of 224 people dead.

(la/dpa)