A day after six Italian peacekeepers were wounded by a roadside bomb on a U.N. convoy, Italy said it wants to reduce its contingent in a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, early reports said on Sunday.

Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said in a newspaper interview that the attack was a terrorist act of Palestinian fringes and that it was the first such attack on U.N. peacekeepers there since 2008 on Saturday.

La Russa told La Repubblica that Italy wants to reduce its 1,780 troops to about 1,100. But he said that any downsizing of Italian troops would be gradual and that Italy would not abandon Lebanon.

The minister also called for other states in Europe and and outside to provide troops and equipment.