Italy Addresses Escalating Security Problems

Italian Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri announced May 13 that she intends to use the Italian army to protect two Italian companies that recently came under attack. The first is Equitalia, which handles tax collection for the Italian government and has been attacked approximately a dozen times since December 2011, when a letter bomb injured an employee at the company's Rome office. The second company is Finmeccanica, Italy's second-largest industrial conglomerate. Gunmen shot and injured Roberto Adinolfi, the CEO of Finmeccanica's Ansaldo Nucleare, in Genoa on May 7. An anarchist group claimed responsibility for the Adinolfi attack May 11 in a letter that also referred to the letter bomb at Equitalia.

Cancellieri highlighted another security issue May 14 when she said Italy's high-speed train network, the TAV, is one of the Italian government's largest security concerns. She indicated that the army could be deployed to protect TAV infrastructure as well, including the Turin-Lyon line currently under construction and facing opposition from local groups amid allegations of environmental degradation and financial waste related to the project.

Although there is no explicit link between the Adinolfi attackers and the TAV protesters, Rome is concerned about an overall escalation of violence and anti-government activity in the country. A recent uptick in aggression from Italian anarchists amid the country's financial crisis could draw unemployed and disenfranchised Italians into acts of violence against the state, and the decision to deploy the army indicates that Rome is not ignoring the possibility of more violence.