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Tens of thousands of people marched through the northeastern Italian city of Vicenza under heavy police guard Saturday to protest a planned U.S. military-base expansion.

Despite fears that violent demonstrators would be drawn to the protest, the march took place without incident, finishing outside the main train station where it started, as hundreds of police officers stood guard and helicopters hovered overhead. The route did not pass the airfield where the expanded base is to be built, though critics keep a permanent picket at that site.

100,000 Protest Expansion of U.S. Military Base in Italy
In Italy, over 100,000 protesters marched in Vicenza on Saturday to protest a plan to double the size of a U.S. military base in the city. Over twenty seven hundred US forces are already based in the Italian city. Critics of the plan say the base will be used as a staging post for the U.S. military to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. The protesters included several Americans including John Gilbert, a professor at the University of Florence.

Tens of thousands of protesters have taken part in a rally against the expansion of a US military base in Vicenza in northern Italy. Police estimated the number of demonstrators on Saturday as 25,000, but organisers put the turnout at more than 100,000.