Alfano in Taranto after child slain in Mob hit

'The State is here' tweets interior minister

(ANSA) - Taranto, March 21 - Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano arrived in Taranto Friday to chair a national committee on law and order, days after a Mob shooting in the area that killed a toddler in the crossfire. "The State is here," he tweeted upon on arrival in the southern city. "We are giving the public prosecutor two teams to further investigate". The country was in shock this week after three-year-old Domenico Petruzzelli lost his life in an indiscriminate revenge hit by the Puglia-based Sacra Corono Unita on a motorway Monday night.

He was one of three people including his mother and a convicted murderer shot to death by killers in a passing car in what police believe was part of a mafia vendetta. The target was believed to be Cosimo Orlando, 43, who was shot behind the wheel beside his partner Carla Maria Fornari, 30, who was holding the three-year-old. Two more children in the backseat, a six- and seven-year-old, were unharmed. Police have released security-camera footage that captured the shooting.

Alfano deployed 60 police officers on Tuesday to the province of Taranto to join civilian and military forces already present and vowed that the government would give a "swift response".