Italy's premier Giuseppe Conte and foreign minister Luigi Di Maio on Thursday paid tribute to 18 Italian troops and an Italian civilian who died in a suicide bombing at a barracks in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq in 2003 - the worst Italian military disaster since World War II.
"Seven years after the vile terrorist attack in Nassiriya, we must not forget the 19 Italians who worked to defend freedom and safeguard peace, whose lives were cut short. We will always remember their sacrifice and that of all those who have died in the line of duty," Conte wrote on social media.
"That cowardly attack, the tanker that blew up, causing slaughter at the headquarters of Italy's Carabinieri - the images are still etched in our minds," Di Maio wrote on Facebook.
"Seventeen years on from the Nassiriya massacre, let's remember how many people died as heroes," the post went on.
"Our thoughts today are with them and the civilian victims who lost their lives on that terrible day."
Besides the 18 Italian servicemen -mainly Carabinieri officers - an Italian civilian was killed and five Iraqi women were incinerated in the car they were travelling in when the tanker exploded in a massive fireball.
Italy's defence minister at the time of the Nassiriya attack, Antonio Martino, pinned blame for the massacre on Arab extremists loyal to Iraq's late dictator Saddam Hussein.
