Europeans Show Solidarity With the U.S., but Fear Their Cities Will Become Battlegrounds

As the full horror of the attacks on epicenters of American economic and military might began to sink in among U.S. allies Wednesday, so did a sense of foreboding.

In Italy, France, Germany, Britain and Spain--countries more accustomed than the United States to terrorist attacks--people expressed disbelief at the scenes of devastation and asked one question:

“If these men of blood can reach out into America’s front yard and wreak desperate havoc with such apparent impunity, then who among us is safe,” the Guardian newspaper in London said in an editorial.

Flags flew at half-staff across Europe in mourning for the still-uncounted dead. Flowers were laid at U.S. embassies, concerts and sporting events were canceled out of respect, and European foreign ministers called for three minutes of silence Friday for the victims. Strangers approached Americans on the streets to express their condolences.

“It’s terrible news,” said a bus driver in London.

“We’re all in shock,” added a construction worker passing by.

“I am so sorry,” an office cleaner offered in Berlin, her hands folded in prayer.

But as bomb threats forced the evacuation of buildings from Malaysia to Germany, the sympathy was mixed with fear. Security in major European cities was increased to the highest level since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, sending a dual message of protection and vulnerability.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that Tuesday’s attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was not just an attack on the U.S. but on the democratic world. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the U.S. was at war, engaged in a long-term conflict that would be fought on many fronts.

And Europeans wondered whether their cities would become the next battlegrounds.

“We are all Americans,” the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera stated. “The distance from the United States no longer exists because we, our values, are also in the cross hairs of evil minds. From now on, we will also feel anxious and helpless every time we see a plane flying at a low altitude.”

Maria Weber, 67, of St. Augustin, Germany, said the wreckage in New York and Washington reminded her of scenes from World War II and made her feel exposed in her comfortable suburb.

“If someone wanted to do the same to us, we have no way to stop it. If America can be hit like this, what would we have to stop crazy people from doing so in Germany?” she wondered aloud.

Her fears were echoed by French office worker Christine Zahm in Paris.

“The way these actions were conducted in the States makes us think that they are absolutely unavoidable,” said Zahm, 56. “As of yesterday, the world is completely destabilized.”

Germany, France and Italy all have had their share of home-grown terrorism. Britain has lived with bombings, assassinations and threats from the Irish Republican Army for more than three decades, and Spain is at war with Basque separatists.

Palestinians slaughtered the Israeli team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, and in 1994 police at the Marseilles airport stormed an Air France plane that had been commandeered by Algerians from the Armed Islamic Group. The terrorists had intended to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris, police later learned.

But none of these events were on the scale of Tuesday’s attack on the world’s only superpower, and none inspired such widespread feelings internationally of precariousness and peril.

Many Europeans were as concerned about what the U.S. government will do to exact revenge as they were about another attack by terrorists. Will the U.S. respond randomly or selectively? Will the U.S. government consult and coordinate with its allies?

Solidarity was demonstrated at processions in Venice and Rome, but it was tempered with caution as armed troops patrolled airports and Metro stations in Paris, police with sniffer dogs stepped up security around the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, and Spanish police threw cordons around the U.S. and Israeli embassies and the Palestinian mission in Madrid.

“I feel close to the American people. America was very close to us when we needed them in the past, and now we have to stay close to them,” said Italian soccer trainer Antonio Posteraro.

“My big fear is how will the superpower United States react?” he added. “Are they going to vindicate this attack with reasoning or without it? I am scared of Italy’s strategic position.”

Britain’s Financial Times newspaper urged President Bush to “pause” and establish the facts before “acting with allies around the world. . . . He should also recognize that yesterday’s outrages were a calculated effort to force America to withdraw from the world.

“This must not happen. The U.S. now needs international support and the world needs U.S. engagement,” the Financial Times said.

In Britain, opponents of the U.S. proposal for a missile defense shield argued that Tuesday’s events showed that such a project is irrelevant.

“One wonders how much yesterday’s events will lead the American political elite to question whether national missile defense really should be their highest priority,” professor Lawrence Freedman of Kings College, London, wrote in the Financial Times. “It is not necessary to use long-range missiles to cause utter devastation.”

At airports, in train stations and cafes, Europeans pored over their newspapers and watched television reports of the U.S. carnage. Their mood was grim.

“Everyone knows we’re allies with the same goals and objectives,” said Derrick Leiba, 37, a Briton traveling from London’s Heathrow Airport to Jamaica. “I think there will be a price.”

So did Jack St. Arnaud, 43, a Canadian businessman trying to get from London to Canada. He made a point of putting Canadian flags on his luggage to advertise that he is not an American.

“We support the Americans a hundred percent. But we know at a time like this that the arrows are pointed at Americans,” he said.

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Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Sebastian Rotella in Paris and Carol J. Williams in Berlin, and special correspondents Maria de Cristofaro in Rome, Reane Oppl in Bonn, Achrene Sicakyuz in Paris and Janet Stobart in London.