Police fired tear gas and watercannon at smoke bomb-throwing protesters who moved toward a Winter Olympics venue in Milan on Saturday.
The brief clash involving dozens of protesters occurred near the Santagiulia ice hockey rink on the outskirts of the city.
Stones and other objects also were hurled at police.
A smaller group of masked protesters set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 yards (meters) from the Olympic Village housing around 1,500 athletes.
The troublemakers broke away from a 10,000-strong peaceful demonstration against high housing costs and the environmental impact of the Games.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government on Thursday adopted an anti-riot decree allowing police to detain suspected troublemakers for up to 12 hours to keep them away from protests.
It was drafted in response to a riot in the northern city of Turin on the evening of 31 January in which black-clad anarchists threw stones, Molotov cocktails, smoke bombs and fireworks at law enforcement personnel, injuring 108 of them. Video showed police lines being forced backward during the clash. An armored police van and garbage bins were set ablaze.
Police made nearly 30 arrests.
The riot erupted in response to authorities clearing out a social center that had been occupied by ultra-leftists for many years.
The decree also includes measures against pickpockets, youth gangs, a ban on the sales of knives to minors, and greater self-defense guarantees for police officers and private citizens when they come under assault.
Various activists and groups are planning demonstrations on the periphery of security zones set up around Olympic venues. Most of the protests have been registered with authorities and are expected to be peaceful, but there could be violence or public disruption in some cases, as was the case near the ice hockey venue.
In a separate security incident on Saturday, unidentified saboteurs damaged rail infrastructure near the northern city of Bologna, disrupting high-speed, inter-city and regional passengers train service for over two hours.
Electrical cables used to detect train speeds were severed and a rudimentary explosive device was discovered by a track nearby.
Farther away, a cabin housing a track switch was set on fire before dawn near the Adriatic city of Pesaro.
Bologna is a key railway junction, and the coordinated attacks clearly seemed timed to mar the first full day of the Winter Olympics in Milan, Cortina and other points in the north.
The sabotage was reminiscent of coordinated arson attacks against signal boxes on three lines of France’s high-speed railway system that widely disrupted domestic and international trains on the day of the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
There never have been arrests or a claim of responsibility for that incident, but ultra-leftists or anarchists widely are considered to have been responsible.
Although they have been relatively quiet in recent years, Italian anarchist and ultra-leftist militants occasionally have detonated crude bombs outside banks, government buildings and other supposed symbols of capitalism and authority.
The Games will run until 22 February. They are the first multi-location Winter Olympics.
As with any major international event, terrorism is the chief concern. Unlike France and several other fellow European Union countries, Italy has never suffered a major organized attack by al-Qaida or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or been plagued by primitive Islamic terrorist attacks by singletons radicalized through social media. Yet there is a small jihadist contingent among the nearly 2 million Muslims living legally and illegally in Italy, and hundreds of extremists have been arrested locally since 9/11. Meanwhile, jihadists bent on staging terrorist attacks could cross the country’s borders.
With concentric security rings and checks around Olympic venues, both sophisticated and primitive Islamic terrorists could opt to target crowds on streets farther away or in relatively unprotected enclosed spaces such as cafes, restaurants and shopping venues. Use of drones to deliver explosives or chemical agents is conceivable.
Russia has been barred from fielding a team at the Olympics due to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It could attempt to mar the Games, most likely through cyberattacks aimed at security arrangements or public- or private-sector support for sporting competitions and people attending them. Moscow conceivably could attempt arson or other low-level sabotage by local criminals and ne’er-do-wells indirectly recruited and paid by its intelligence services.
Petty theft and scams traditionally have been less of a concern in northern Italy than in the center and south of the country but the Olympics present an opportunity for grab and con artists. To reduce risks of low-level street crime, police are heavily deployed with ample backing from cameras and the full range of security hardware and software. Mugging and other violent crime rates traditionally have been low in Italy, although incidents could occur, especially in isolated places or late at night.
Italy’s competent security services gained important experience protecting the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, during which there were no serious security incidents. They are again alert to all manner of bad actors, with extensive intelligence and tactical support from the United States and other countries, most notably France, which successfully executed a security program of unprecedented size and scope to protect the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
To play it safe, personnel attending the Olympics should take serious precautions:
Senior executives should be furnished with professional security escorts ideally conversant in Italian. The chief purpose of security escorts is to navigate Italy and sporting events with an eye toward terrorism and crime risks and to serve as a liaison to Italian security personnel. In the event of a serious incident in the vicinity, the judgment and actions of security escorts could prove invaluable. They need not be armed, but exceptional circumstances may warrant that option.
All personnel should exercise commonsense precautions against petty and violent crime.
Those in Italy during the Games should monitor the news constantly with the aim of avoiding or minimizing exposure to security incidents, cyberattacks, protests and other disruptive events.
Corporations should ensure that crisis management team members are prepared to respond immediately to and handle Olympics-related incidents.
