DUBAI, Aug 7 (AFP) - A group linked to Al-Qaeda purportedly called Saturday on its cells in Italy to be ready to hit targets in the country when its August 15 deadline for Rome to withdraw from Iraq passes.
"Our cells in Rome and the rest of the Italian cities have prepared ... and the delay set for your (Italian) government is nearing its end," said the statement from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades -- Al-Qaeda organization.
"If you are wise, you would take the decision to withdraw from Iraq or else every place will be a target at the end of the deadline," the group said in a statement published on an Islamic website.
The group warned that "the war is getting close."
"We ask you (cells) to prepare to strike any target in front of you after the expiration of the deadline given to the Italian government," it said.
"Let (Italian Prime Minister Silvio) Berlusconi and his clique taste the same bitterness of blood that they have made the Iraqi people taste," said the text which could not be authenticated.
On August 1, the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi published a statement in the name of the group which threatened to attack Italians everywhere unless Rome pulled its troops out of Iraq within 15 days.
The group had also threatened Italy on July 16 with a bloodbath on the scale of the September 11, 2001, attacks which killed thousands in the United States if Berlusconi remained in power.
The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades claimed responsibility for the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people, as well as for November 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 25 people.
Abu Hafs al-Masri headed Al-Qaeda military operations until he was killed in the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.