ROME, July 7: Countries in Europe tightened security on Thursday after four deadly bombings in London, fearing more attacks across the continent. Italian Interior Minister Guiseppe Pisanu said all of Europe had raised its alert level. French officials reviewed vulnerable sites and Spain, where al Qaeda-linked train bombings killed 191 people last year, offered to help track down the killers.

“There is (heightened alert) in all of Europe,” Pisanu said. “As the violence breaks out again one must keep one’s nerves steady and face it, with the force of law and with the rules of democracy.”

A previously unknown group calling itself the “Secret Group of Al Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe” claimed responsibility for the coordinated blasts on underground railway trains and buses which killed more than three dozen people in the British capital.

It warned Italy and Denmark to withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, Italian news agency ANSA reported. But British and US officials said it was not clear if the group’s claims were genuine.

Cities from Berlin to Prague to Warsaw hiked security on railways and buses, and Italian airports went on maximum alert.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin put France on its second highest level of security after convening his defence, interior and foreign ministers.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende warned of a pan-European terrorist threat and stepped up border checks and increased security around British buildings in his country.

“Terrorism is an evil that threatens all the countries in Europe,” Balkenende said.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said his country’s role in the US-led coalition in Iraq could make it a terrorist target, and asked Italians to be vigilant.

Italy is the third largest Western member of coalition forces in Iraq, after the United States and Britain.

“We are the third largest force involved in peacekeeping. We have also always been subjected to this negative attention by terrorist criminal organisations,” Berlusconi said.

“A heightened vigilance is needed, with the understanding that even Italy is exposed.”

Security analysts said the apparently coordinated blasts across London’s transport network bore similarities to those in Madrid in March last year, when 10 bombs hidden in sports bags exploded on four packed commuter trains.

Like Madrid, the London blasts also appeared timed to coincide with a major political event — as the leaders of the Group of Eight nations met in Scotland.

The Madrid attacks occurred three days before a general election, which ousted the US-allied ruling government and saw Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero ushered into office. He then pulled Spanish forces from Iraq.

Zapatero on Thursday ordered the Interior Ministry to activate “all of the alert and prevention systems”.

“Spain, which has suffered the scourge of terrorism...offers its immediate and unconditional help, as well as its full support to the United Kingdom to pursue the criminals that have carried out such a repulsive attack,” Zapatero’s office said.

Russia said it was boosting security, including at airports, railway stations, ports and embassies. A Chechen suicide bomber killed 10 people last August outside a busy metro station, just before the Beslan school massacre in which 330 died.

“What happened today again testifies to the fact that all of us are doing too little to unite our forces effectively in the struggle against terrorism,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement.—Reuters