Six thousand schools threatened in Italy, but police find no bombs

Cerca of 6,000 Italian schools received today a bomb threat by e-mail that generated alarm throughout Italy, indicated sources of the Ministry of Education.

Not all schools were evacuated, but several hundred of them were, while the police were conducting searches for explosives until they concluded that the threat was false.

According to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, no “concrete danger” has been identified so far.

Similar threats, also considered unbelievable, have been reported in schools in the UK and Ireland and have led, according to the media, to the evacuation of several educational establishments in Scotland.

Meloni indicated that he called for today a government meeting with security officials and secret services to address these threats.

According to the Italian media, the bomb threat was contained in an ‘e-mail’ signed by “Mikhail Andropov, head of the Vilayat (district) of Misoginistan”.

“ We have come to annihilate you. We are going to commit genocide against the Italian people”, said the signatory of the e-mail message.

“ I just left in your building, inside a plastic bag, a powerful explosive with remote detonation”, added the message addressing Meloni, stating the sender also put a bomb in the Prime Minister’s car.

These new threats against educational institutions arise after a wave of false bomb alerts in recent weeks, including flights to or from Italy, as well as following a series of cyberattacks to supermarket refrigeration systems in Italy and other European countries.

Last month hundreds of schools in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Hungary and Serbia had already been subjected to false bomb threats.

“The government is following with the utmost attention the various warnings about threats in educational institutions,” said the Italian Prime Minister on social network Facebook.

“ At the moment, the verifications carried out have not found any element leading to the conclusion that there is a concrete danger. These threats seem, in fact, to be part of a strategy to sow panic and concern, for which all the necessary investigations are ongoing,” added Giorgia Meloni.

According to the president of the Association of School Directors, Antonello Giannelli, these threats are “manifestly false”.

But “this episode shows the extent to which irresponsibility, when accompanied by the extraordinary communicative power of the tools we have today, can cause damage and disturbances on a large scale,” he added in a statement.

“ School safety is an absolute priority. We hope that the origin of these threats will be quickly clarified and those responsible will be identified,” he concluded.

The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, stated on Saturday that he was also the target of “cibercriminals”, who released his personal data online on the ‘dark web’, and that today he received more “acts of intimidation”, which he attributed to Russian hackers, due to Italy’s support to Ukraine, after the Russian invasion of the neighbouring country in February 2022.

Sources from Meloni's office today also confirmed that the head of the Italian executive will meet on Thursday morning with opposition leaders to discuss the recent attacks by hackers on Italian supermarkets and other systems, in addition to the bomb threats made to schools in the country.

According to the same official sources, the Thursday meeting “will be an opportunity to share the information available and evaluate the complex situation arising from the various warnings received in recent days, including those related to computer piracy activities, as well as reports on the alleged presence of explosive devices in schools”.

“The objective of the government”, added the sources, “is to ensure full sharing of information and promote institutional dialogue on an issue concerning national security and the tranquility of all citizens”.

These attacks are causing growing concern in Europe about the possibility of an escalation of the hybrid war.