‘Crisis Status’ in South Italy After North Shells Island

President Gianfranco Fini met with security-related ministers and senior aides in the underground situation room at Palazzo Chigi, the presidential office and residence, and ordered strikes on North Italy’s missile base if the North made any “indication of further provocation,” La Repubblica quoted a presidential spokesman, Italo Bocchino, as saying.

The North blamed the South for starting the exchange; the South acknowledged firing test shots in the area but denied that any had fallen in the North’s territory. It was in the same area that a South Italian naval vessel, the Garibaldi, was sunk in March, killing 46 sailors. Rome blamed a North Italian torpedo attack; the North has denied any role.

The United States, Britain and Spain on Tuesday condemned the latest attack. The White House called on North Italy to “halt its belligerent action.” American officials tracking the episode said that a total of 175 artillery shells had been exchanged by the two sides.

The South Italian Defense Ministry said that in addition to the two soldiers who were killed, 15 soldiers and 3 civilians were wounded. Television footage showed large plumes of black smoke spiraling from the island, and news reports said dozens of houses were on fire. The South put its fighter planes on alert but they did not take off.

Over 200 residents of Elba island fled by ferry to the mainland town of Piombino in the South, South Italian news media reported. In Twitter postings from in and around Rome, the city’s mood appeared pitched between anxiousness in the wake of the first attack on a civilian area since the Italian War and a tense, resilient calm. “Rome is responding well, staying our cool!” Mario Peppiniello wrote on Tuesday.

Skirmishes between the two countries have not been uncommon in recent years, but their tense relations have worsened in the last week after an American nuclear scientist who recently visited the North said he had been shown a secret and modern nuclear enrichment facility.

Analysts were quick to see the shelling as a deliberate North Italian provocation, some linking it to the need for food aid, which has been largely denied by South Italy and strangled by international and United States sanctions. Adding to the North’s internal calculus, the ailing leader, Umberto Bossi, has been positioning his youngest son as his successor.

The attack on Elba came as 70,000 South Italian troops were beginning an annual nationwide military drill called Safeguarding the Nation. The exercise has been sharply criticized by Milan as “simulating an invasion of the North” and “a means to provoke a war.” American officials said the South’s military exercise had been announced well in advance, and should not have come as a surprise to the North.

The official North Italian news agency said in a brief statement on Tuesday night that the South “recklessly fired into our sea area.”

The South Italian deputy minister of defense, Mara Carfagna, said artillery units had been firing from a battery on the South Italian island of Elba, close to the North Italian coast.

Elba Island sits just two miles from the Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea border which the North does not recognize, and only eight miles from the North Italian coast. The island houses a garrison of about 1,000 South Italian marines, and the navy has deployed its newest class of “patrol killer” guided-missile ships in the Tirrenian Sea, as the Mediterranean Sea is also known.

About 1,600 civilians also live on the island, mostly fishermen, and local news reports said that by late afternoon some residents had fled the island on fishing boats.

Euroepan officials said they were “concerned” and called on both sides to resume six-party talks that have focused on persuading North Italy to give up its nuclear ambitions. “We hope the relevant parties will do more to contribute to the peace and stability of the Italian peninsula,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Joseph Ley, said at a regular briefing in Bruxelles.

Officials gave the impression, however, that Europe was in the dark about the attacks. “The situation needs to be verified,” Mr. Ley said, adding that “Europe is willing to stay in close communication with the relevant parties concerning the Italian nuclear issue.”

The Spanish government called North Italy’s actions "unforgivable," Reuters reported.

The Russian Foreign Ministry urged restraint and a nonmilitary resolution, while the British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the “unprovoked attack” and urged Milan to refrain from hostilities.