Crackdown in Rome nets 29

Press, 11 January 1978, Page 6

Crackdown in Rome nets 29

NZPA-Reuter Rome Riot policemen manning road-blocks in central Rome have arrested 29 persons in a crackdown on suspected extremists. The clampdown came after a week-end of bloody political disorder in which three persons were killed. Mayor Guilio Carlo Argan, speaking to an emergency session of Rome City Council, called for a “mobilisation of all democratic forces to put an end to subversion and terrorism which threatens our democratic system.” Two young neo-Fascists were killed on Saturday by an armed gang, a pre-viously-unknown group calling itself “Armed Nuclei of Territorial Counter-power” claiming responsibility. A third Right-winger, shot in the head during the ensuing riots, has died of his injuries.

The violence sparked a wave of angry Right-wing protests. Hundreds of demonstrators attacked Leftist targets in Naples with stones and fire-bombs and extremists bombed the office

of the chief of political police in Milan.

Half a dozen extremists from both the Right and the Left have been shot dead in ambushes in the last 12 months. The killers have not been caught or identified, but the police assume they were from opposite factions. Most victims are teenagers or in the early 20s, violence and extremist feuds exploding especially in high schools and universities, pitting against each other Marxist splinter groups and followers of the Italian Social Movement, the party founded and headed by former collaborators of Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.

The United States Ambassador (Mr Richard Garner) will leave for Washington today for consultations on the uncertain political situation in this North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country. A Christian Democrat deputy urged the Foreign Minister (Mr Arnaldo Forlani) to reject publicly [any attempt at external • interference in Italian politics.