NYT: Protesters Oppose Plan to Expand American Base in Northern Italy - by PETER KIEFER

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Protesters Oppose Plan to Expand American Base in Northern Italy - by PETER KIEFER

Tens of thousands of people converged Saturday on this small city in the Veneto region of northern Italy for a peaceful protest against the planned expansion of an American military base here.The expansion would essentially double the base’s size so it could house the full 173rd Airborne Brigade. The number of military personnel here would grow to about 4,500 from 2,750.

Fueling the tensions in advance of the march, an Italian judge indicted 26 Americans on Friday, most of them C.I.A. officers, in connection with the 2003 kidnapping in Milan of a radical Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar.