ROME, Aug 16 (AFP) - Italy remained on high alert Monday, a day after the expiry of an ultimatum by a group claiming affiliation with Al-Qaeda threatening a "bloody war" on Italian soil if Rome fails to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
"We are maintaining a high alert. The monitoring posts and the surveillance of potential targets will remain in place," an interior ministry spokesman told AFP.
These special security measures continue despite the absence of evidence of imminent attacks beyond a series of threats, purportedly from the same group, published over the last month.
On Sunday, a statement posted on an Islamic website in the name of Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades-Al-Qaeda declared "a bloody war" on Italians, specifically targeting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
An earlier threat allegedly by the same group, published in an Arab newspaper on August 1, threatened to strike Italians everywhere unless Rome withdrew its nearly 3,000 troops from Iraq within 15 days.
Besides these threats, "we have no specific indication of a concrete danger," the spokesman said, though he did indicate that there had been a few "false alarms".
The same group claimed responsibility for the bloody March 11 attack on a Madrid commuter train that killed 191 people as well as the November 2003 bombings against British interests in Istanbul in which 25 people died.
Berlusconi is currently vacationing in his summer residence on the island of Sardinia where he is due to receive British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a private guest on Monday.
The Italian Prime Minister`s estate Villa Certosa, in the northeastern part of the island, is under constant surveillance by special forces and military units.
Officials have said some 13,000 potential targets are now permanently guarded by 23,000 police and soldiers, between 5,000 and 6,000 of them in Rome.
Hospitals were on the alert and fire chiefs were ordered to increase personnel in the seven cities seen most at risk -- Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Rome, Turin and Venice.