Italy on Friday 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 Friday, 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 northwestern 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 Friday: “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.”
Nigeria’s government “had better get its facts straight and find the true identity of the kidnappers,” Qaqa added.
“They should not use us to mask their incompetence.”
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 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”.
The Italian government said Prime Minister Mario Monti Monti had only been informed by Cameron once the operation was under way, as he flew back to Rome from a visit to Belgrade.
Cameron’s spokesman in London confirmed this on Friday.
And in Copenhagen, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said there had been “limited time” and too many “constraints” to consult Italy.
Italian officials had said on Thursday it had been working with Britain and Nigeria from the moment the men were kidnapped, but that the bid to rescue them had been unexpectedly sped up.
The Italian government said the operation “tragically ended with the murder of the hostages by the kidnappers, according to the British version of what happened”.
Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, said some of the hostage-takers had been arrested.
While officials have given few details about the operation or those involved, newspapers reports in London said it included members of Britain’s elite forces Special Boat Service (SBS) who had been in Nigeria for two weeks.
Cameron said the two hostages had been held by “terrorists” who had made “very clear threats to take their lives”, and the captives had been in “imminent and growing danger”.
AFP received a video showing McManus and Lamolinara in August. In the footage, both men said their kidnappers were from Al-Qaeda.
In a second video received by a Mauritanian news agency and seen by AFP in December, gunmen threatened to execute McManus if their demands were not met.
The two hostages were kidnapped by heavily armed men who stormed their apartment in Kebbi state in May 2011. They had been helping build a central bank building in the city and worked for construction firm Stabilini Visinoni.
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