SABOTEURS TARGET ITALIAN RAILWAYS TO CAUSE WINTER OLYMPICS TRAVEL CHAOS AMID PROTESTS

A fire on the railways has caused Winter Olympics travel chaos after saboteurs launched a 'coordinated' attack.

Police said attacks in three separate locations had resulted in severe delays on the first full day of the Games near the northern Italian city of Bologna.

The operation forced the temporary closure of the state-owned railway Ferrovie dello Stato this morning after a fire hit rail infrastructure between Bologna and Venice.

The attacks - described by Italy's Transport Ministry as being of 'unprecedented seriousness' - come amid clashes between police and environmental protesters, who today set off firecrackers and attempted to access a highway near the Olympics venue.

Delays of up to two and a half hours were reported for high-speed, Intercity and regional services.

The Transport Ministry, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, said: 'These actions of unprecedented seriousness do not in any way tarnish Italy's image in the world, an image that the Games will make even more compelling and positive.'

Traffic at Ferrovie dello Stato returned to normal this afternoon, the ministry added.  

Police said a cabin with a track switch was set on fire before dawn near the Adriatic city of Pesaro. 

Several hours later, electrical cables used to detect train speeds were found severed in Bologna, while a rudimentary explosive device was discovered by a track at a nearby location.

A spokesman said no one had claimed responsibility for the incidents, which appeared to have been coordinated.

Italian police today fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters as they tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue.

The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of U.S. agents in Italy.

Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. 

By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.

Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that's housing around 1,500 athletes.

Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes' village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. 

A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.

There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes' transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.

The demonstration coincided with U.S. Vice President JD Vance's visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.

He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the U.S. delegation.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the U.S. is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.

At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.

'Let's take back the cities and free the mountains,' read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.

'They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,' said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.

Homemade signs read 'Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,' the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: 'Infernal Olympics.'

The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.

Similarly to last week, demonstrators today said they were opposed to ICE agents' presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in U.S. diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.

Bologna is a major junction for Italy's east-to-west rail lines, and is also the key hub linking the south to northern cities such as Milan and Venice.

Milan is a co-host of the Winter Games alongside Cortina, which is reachable via train from Venice.

At the 2024 Summer Olympic Games staged ⁠in Paris, saboteurs targetted France’s TGV high-speed train network in ‌a series of ⁠attacks across the country, ‍also causing travel chaos ahead of the opening ceremony.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers were impacted by the disruption, blamed on far-left militants.

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2026-02-07T20:42:30Z