Italy yesterday condemned Britain’s failure to warn it ahead of a failed bid to rescue a pair of British and Italian hostages in Nigeria, as Boko Haram militants denied having abducted the pair.
“The behaviour of the British government, which did not inform or consult with Italy on the operation that it was planning, really is inexplicable,” President Giorgio Napolitano told reporters a day after the assault.
“There needs to be a political and diplomatic clarification,” he said.
And at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Copenhagen later yesterday, Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata said he made Italy’s feelings clear during talks with British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
“I asked for detailed information because we have a right to maximum clarity on this episode,” said Italy’s foreign minister.
“I also communicated the immense suffering that this news caused an Italian family,” he told reporters.
“And I insisted that the information we have requested be sent to us as soon as possible, in the coming hours.”
Their comments reflected growing anger in Italy over the failed rescue bid, as witnesses in Sokoto in north-western Nigeria described a British-Nigerian operation involving 100 troops, military trucks and a helicopter.
They said the intense gun battle that lasted for several hours, during which at least two hostage-takers were killed.
Britain said Italian engineer Francesco Molinara, 48, and his British colleague Chris McManus, 28, were shot by their captors during the assault.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan had said that the kidnappers were from Islamist group Boko Haram, which has waged a violent campaign mainly in the country’s northeast.
But a spokesman for Boko Haram denied any involvement in the kidnapping.
The group’s spokesman Abul Qaqa said in a conference call with reporters yesterday: “We are not behind the hostage taking ... which led to the military operation yesterday in Sokoto in which the hostages were killed.
“We have never been involved in hostage-taking and it’s not part of our style, and we never ask for ransom,” he said.
“We know how to settle our scores with anybody. Therefore the allegation that the kidnappers were members of our group is ridiculous.”
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has in recent years claimed kidnappings of foreign workers in countries including Niger, which borders Nigeria to the north, but never in Nigeria. Sokoto state borders Niger.
An editorial in Italy’s top-selling Corriere della Sera daily said of the row: “It is an unacceptable slap in the face and saying sorry is not enough.”
The left-leaning La Repubblica daily said the incident was “a blow for Italy’s new-found international credibility” and the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper cited government sources saying there was “a real chill in relations between Rome and London”.