Praxilla Trabattoni / NBC News

California native Nicholas Burnett, 20, stabbed in a pub in Rome where he was on his semester abroad studying at Temple University.

ROME — An American college student suffered a foot-long stab wound and a punctured lung when a mob of up to 50 masked men armed with knives and baseball bats suddenly charged English soccer fans and others in a piazza in Italian capital Rome, he told NBC News.

Local media initially blamed Thursday's attack on hard core fans or "Ultras" supporting soccer team Lazio — who played English team Tottenham on Thursday — but two fans of bitter rivals Roma were among a group of 15 detained for alleged involvement in attack, suggesting a different motive.

Witnesses told local media that the attackers shouted "Jews, Jews" as they laid siege to the bar in a district popular with tourists in an old quarter of Rome, raising fears of far-right, racist violence, Reuters reported.

Ten people were injured in the attack and 25-year old Ashley Mills, reportedly an English Tottenham supporter, was left in critical condition. Mills was still hospitalized on Friday, the wire service said.

Tried to run
Nicholas Burnett, 20, of Anaheim, Calif., told NBC News he was standing outside the bar with some friends when he saw "40 to 50 storm into the piazza."

At first, he said they looked "just like a bunch of guys wearing costumes," but the seriousness of the situation quickly became clear.

"Some were wearing helmets, others had scarves covering their faces and all of them were carrying weapons, of all sorts. Sticks, bats, wooden planks, some were swinging their thick belts with heavy buckles," Burnett said.

"All of a sudden they started charging towards the bar. I tried to run away from them and one of the guys broke away from the crowd and took a swing at me over the head with what I though was a baseball bat," he said.

"But judging by my wound it was not a baseball bat, but more like a knife. I ran as fast as I could away from them. ... A couple of minutes later, I realized I was bleeding when I touched my back and felt the T-shirt all wet," he added.

Yara Nardi / Reuters

A pub is seen damaged after a fight in downtown Rome on Thursday.

As he fled, he met two students from John Cabot University, who tried to hail a taxi to take him to hospital, but the first driver "refused to take me in his car because I was all bloodied and still bleeding profusely," Burnett said.

Read more World stories from NBC News

Burnett, who is on a semester abroad at Temple University in Rome, where he is studying business and Italian, was stabbed in the upper-right side of his back down to his left side, he told NBC. The stabbing punctured his right lung, he said.

"I had so many stitches that when I asked the doctors how many they were, they weren't even able to tell me. They simply said, 'Too many,'" he said.

'Very, very scared'
Burnett said he was initially unable to speak to the police because of the pain, but said he had been getting "great care" from medical staff.

"I would like to tell my friends and family back at home that I am OK," he said. "Although I was very, very scared."

Burnett said the attackers moved in unison like "clockwork."

"I don't know how they organized it so well, but that's what made it so scary ... to see them all coming at once threateningly waving what appeared to be makeshift weapons," he said.

Complete Europe coverage on NBCNews.com

He said the attackers were "hurling anything they could find ... including chairs, tables, stools, bottles, shards from the broken windowpanes, bottles, glasses," he said.

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno has expressed deep concern about the attack and said he hoped the police would quickly track down those responsible.

"We were all just having a drink, we weren't there for the football (soccer). I don't care for football at all and I don’t know anything about it," Burnett said.

NBC News' Ian Johnston and Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Amid the ruins, Gazans say pity the living, not the dead
• 'Nail house' holds up traffic as homeowners fight local government
• China's latest supermodel? A 72-year-old farmer
• Despite US woes, Twinkies reign supreme on the Nile
• Analysis: Why Hezbollah sat out the Gaza conflict

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Odd Andersen / AFP - Getty Images

Self-confessed mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik speaks with a lawyer at a court in Oslo on Friday.

Updated at 11:35 a.m. ET: OSLO -- A Norwegian court ruled Friday that confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was sane, deciding he was criminally responsible for the massacre of 77 people last summer.

Reading the ruling, Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen said that "in a unanimous decision ... the court sentences the defendant to 21 years of preventive detention." 

However, such sentences can be extended under Norwegian law as long as an inmate is considered dangerous. Experts have said Breivik is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Norway doesn't have the death penalty.

Prosecutors had demanded a verdict of insanity, a fate Breivik called "worse than death," while many of his victims had said only a sane person could have carried out such a complex attack. 

Breivik, 33, detonated a fertilizer bomb outside a government building that included the prime ministerial offices last July, killing eight, then gunned down 69 people, mostly teenagers, at the ruling Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya island.

After the ruling, Breivik told the court he would not appeal the decision.

"He is getting what he deserves," Alexandra Peltre, 18, whom Breivik shot in the thigh on Utoya, told Reuters. "This is karma striking back at him. I do not care if he is insane or not, as long as he gets the punishment that he deserves." 

Another survivor of the massacre, Eivind Rindal, told the Norwegian newspaper VG that “it is important that the defendant gets his punishment but the most important thing is that he never gets out.”

“There are many who shared his extreme views in our society,” Rindal added, according to an English translation in the Telegraph newspaper.

Trine Aamodt, whose 19-year-old son was shot at Utoya, told VG she was “happy with the verdict of sanity and am also very glad that there was consensus from all the judges.”

Guilt never a question
Guilt had never been a question in the trial as Breivik described in chilling detail how he hunted down his victims, some as young as 14, with a shot to the body and then one or more bullets to the head.

The killings shook this nation of five million people which had prided itself as a haven from much of the world's troubles, raising questions about the prevalence of far-right views as immigration rises.

Few believe anyone would ever sign Breivik's release papers. One of the reasons Breivik's attacks were presented in such gruesome detail during the trial was so that the horror of Oslo and Utoya would be well-documented for the day Breivik asks to be released.

Czech police accuse man of plotting Norway-like copycat terrorist attack

The court’s ruling actually imposed a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of 21.

But Jo Stigen, a law professor at the University of Oslo, told NBCNews.com that Breivik was unlikely to be released for decades.

“This means as long as he is dangerous he will not be free. It’s a potential life sentence … I can hardly see it will be considered he’s not dangerous in 30 or 40 years,” he said, speaking by phone from outside the court.

Odd Andersen / AFP - Getty Images

Labor Party secretary Raymond Johansen, center, hugs a relative of an Utoya massacre victim before Breivik's arrival in court on Friday.

After serving the 10-year minimum sentence, Breivik will be evaluated periodically. Stigen said it was “theoretically possible” he could be released in 10 years, but added this was highly unlikely.

After 21 years, the prosecution can seek to have Breivik kept in prison -- Stigen said that “most certainly they will” – and a court will then decide whether to keep the mass killer in prison.

Norway prison seeks 'friends' to play hockey, chess with mass killer Breivik

'Tough year'
The trial and a commission of investigation into the country's worst violence since World War Two have kept Breivik on the front pages for the past 13 months and survivors said the verdict would finally bring some closure.

"It has been a tough year... but I don't want to be Utoya-Nicoline for the rest of my life," said Nicoline Bjerge Schie, a survivor of the shooting, ahead of the verdict.

As a result of the ruling that he is sane, Breivik will be locked up in solitary confinement inside the maximum security Ila prison on the outskirts of Oslo. He will return to his relatively spacious cells, enjoying the comforts of a computer, newspapers and a separate exercise room.

Anders Breivik to Norway court: I killed 77 people but am not guilty

One team of court appointed psychiatrists concluded Breivik was psychotic while another came to the opposite conclusion. To make the ruling more difficult, several other experts who testified described a series of mental conditions Breivik suffered from.

Polls showed that around 70 percent of Norwegians thought such a well-planned attack could not have been the work of a madman and Breivik must take responsibility rather than be dismissed as merely deranged.

Slideshow: Norway mourns after massacre

The nation looks to rally after a bombing and shooting spree leaves 77 people dead.

Launch slideshow

Breivik himself argued for a verdict of sanity as he wanted the attack to be seen as a political statement rather than an act of lunacy.

He rejected criminal charges out of principle, saying he doesn't recognize the court's authority because it represents a political system that supports multiculturalism -- the reason why he targeted the Labor Party.

NBC News' Ian Johnston, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Tropical Storm Isaac threatens Haiti, Dominican Republic
• Still hobbled by quake, Haiti awaits Isaac
• German state raids buildings in crackdown on neo-Nazi groups
• US, Pakistan should 'divorce,' ex-ambassador to Washington says
• Video: Terror triggers Mali exodus
• Lebanon militia stands by Syria's Assad despite bloody crackdown
• Step aside hippos! Wildebeests are on the move

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Yorgos Karahalis / Reuters

Members of Greece's far right Golden Dawn party hand out boxes of milk to residents suffering from the economic crisis at the Syntagma square in Athens on Aug. 1, 2012.

Members of Greece's extreme right Golden Dawn party handed out food parcels outside Parliament on Wednesday, but made sure only Greek citizens received the assistance.

Hundreds stood in line at Athens' main Syntagma Square, showing identification proving their Greek citizenship to pick up their food. Party volunteers dressed in black passed out milk, pasta, potatoes and olive oil in a one-day charity event that critics said was meant to soften the image of a party likened to neo-Nazi groups.

Greece is going through its fifth year of recession, with poverty and the unemployment rate rising, and Golden Dawn has made inroads in the country's political system with its vehement attacks against traditionally dominant parties and strongly anti-immigrant stance.

TV show attack shows 'real face' of far-right in Greece?

Its members have been accused of involvement in attacks against immigrants,  and some of its senior officials have publicly declared admiration for Adolf Hitler. The party rejects the neo-Nazi label.

Public support, however, has increased 20-fold since elections in 2009, and Golden Dawn won 18 seats in the country's 300-seat parliament in June elections.

Surprise success dims for Greek far-right party

"Golden Dawn is a nationalist party and above all we are looking after Greeks," Golden Dawn Parliament member Nikolaos Michos told The Associated Press.

Panayotis Panagiotopoulos, an unemployed man waiting for food Wednesday, said he was grateful for the help and described Golden Dawn as representing "the soul of the Greek people."

Greek politician who attacked rivals on TV sues victims for defamation

The party denies any involvement in a recent surge of street attacks against Asian immigrants in Athens and other cities, despite repeated claims to the contrary by migrant groups and human rights activists.

"At night they beat people up. And by day, they hand out food," Petros Constantinou, a left-wing Athens city councilman, told the AP.

"They are exploiting people's misery to fish for votes. They are despicable."

Ilias Kasidiaris, one of Golden Dawn's MPs, told Reuters TV that the party had bought the food "exclusively from Greek producers to give to Greek people," the BBC reported.

Christos Pappas, a fellow MP, added: "We are in Greece, so Greeks have priority."

"The illegal immigrants that have come here, who enjoy, if you will, all the rights and privileges that come from Greek taxpayers are illegal, invaders. They are a threat to Greece," Pappas said, according to the BBC.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• US: Leaders' deaths put al-Qaida on 'path of decline'
• Good, bad or ugly? Street artists weigh in on Olympics
• Chinese defend swimmer's gold, know Western bias
• Karzai:a 'prisoner in his palace'?
• Video: Syrian rebels obtain anti-aircraft missiles
• Video: 'Blitz Spirit' lives on in London's East End
• Greenland again sees widespread ice melt
• Fugitive anti-whaling activist says ex-crewman betrayed him