Bush commemorates Italian victims of WW2 amid anti-war protests

US President George W. Bush Friday commemorated the victims of the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre, one of Italy's worst World War Two tragedies.

Bush joined Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the caves on the outskirts of Rome where 335 men including 75 Jews were shot dead by German Nazis in reprisal for a partisan bomb that killed 33 German soldiers in downtown Rome.

At the memorial site, Bush, together with his wife Laura, placed a wreath carrying a message "From the American people in respectful memory."

Bush is in Rome to take part in the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the capital's liberation by Allied Forces.

Earlier on Friday, the US president met with Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Bush will leave Rome Saturday morning for a ceremony held in France to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings.

His visit to Rome has drawn thousands of anti-war protesters to the Italian capital.

Source: Xinhua