LONDON – Sympathy, fear, anger and concern: the same reactions expressed by many Americans about Tuesday’s tragedy were echoed in Europe. Those emotions, and the question of what the United States will do now that terrorism has reached its shores.

In Rome, where an American can be identified just by speaking, a common response to terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon has been one of sympathy. Typically, an American is first asked if he knew someone there, followed by concern about military conflict.

“Do you think there will be war?”, Dimitre Tzonev, a hostel worker, asked. He is a Bulgarian working in Rome. “What Middle East country are you going to invade?”

“It’s so strange,” Claudia Vittori, hostess and owner of a small side street restaurant, said. “The children, the small ones … it is like apocalypse.”

The Pope addressed a crowd Wednesday, and said all victims of violence should be in our prayers, and stated the previous day’s attacks were done by men not religion.

All around Rome, law enforcement personnel were joined by numerous green-suited, armed reservists. Each place Americans congregate, including hotels, hostels and tourist attractions, had at least one armed guard for more than 24 hours following the attack. All of the guards carried submachine guns.

One American traveler at Fulmicino Airport learned about the strict new security measures when she left her purse on a lounge seat while going to the restroom. Two officers, an airport official and a ticket agent waited for her return. After an intense 15 minute lecture, she was permitted to move to the gate.

Citizens of London expressed their reactions to the attack less visibly, but the newspapers carried large and poignant pictures from the site of the World Trade Center towers. The Times featured a half-page photo of a very tired President Bush. Beyond the concern, however, the Times Friday opinion page held some words of warning. The authors of two editorials warned the United States to not waste the sympathy and solidarity that the international community now offers.

“I could demand apocalyptic retaliation against every Arab suspect on earth,” Simon Jenkins wrote. “It would make a good headline and excite the BBC. Yet listening and reading this past two days has left me appalled at the hawkishness of pundits … They are the true destabilizers, the menaces to peace.”

On the contrary, there was a letter from a reader about an earlier commentary that seemed to answer Jenkins immediately.

“Sir, The cause of democracy will be damaged unless there is a strong and forceful response against whoever lies behind these devastating attacks. Not to do so, as Simon Jenkins advises (Comment, Sept. 12), will bring shame on the democratic world.”

The United Kingdom expects the loss of British life to be the highest from a single event since World War II.

Terry Dorathy, a businessman and a proprietor of a bed and breakfast, has a daughter living in Chicago. Her husband’s friend is a policeman in Manhattan, and knew several of the police officers killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers Tuesday.

Two young Japanese women staying at the bed and breakfast said their mother knows several people who worked in the Chugoku Bank of Japan branch in the WTC. None of the staff has been heard from and are presumed dead.

The world reverberates, and seemingly no one is far removed from this tragedy.