Bomb threat in thousands of schools. Meloni: “No danger, they want to create chaos”

Bomb alert in thousands of Italian schools. There are 6,300 institutions - some, but not all, of which have been evacuated - that today, November 11, received an email speaking of an imminent explosion. However, from the checks carried out, no element emerged that led to the belief that a concrete danger existed. Minister Valditara spoke of a "non-existent risk" and of "a strategy" linked to the alarms and hacker attacks of recent weeks: "They attacked flights, supermarkets, if I remember correctly even hospitals. Who is behind it is difficult to imagine at the moment. The judiciary will carry out its investigations". The head of the Interior Ministry Matteo Piantedosi proved to be cautious: "It is premature to talk about common management". Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni instead called a meeting at Palazzo Chigi - held in the afternoon - to take stock of the situation and coordinate the necessary initiatives. Furthermore, the Prime Minister will also see the leaders of the opposition forces tomorrow morning. In any case, schools throughout Italy will be open as normal tomorrow.

The message signed Mikhail Andropov: "We have come to annihilate you"

"I have just left a powerful explosive device with remote trigger in your building, inside a plastic bag", we read in the message signed by a certain Mikhail Andropov who defines himself as "leader of the Vilajat of Misoginistan" and threatens: "We have come to annihilate you. We will carry out a genocide against the Italians". The message reads: "I have been preparing for this for a long time: to kill each of you. I have just left a powerful remote-triggered explosive device in your building, inside a plastic bag. I have positioned it in such a way that the shock wave will spread throughout the building. Only bones and a bloody mess will remain of you." Furthermore, he continues, "we planted a bomb in the engine of your prime minister's car." After that "we will finish off the survivors with stabs."

Reports of these episodes have been recorded, among others, in the provinces of Milan, Trieste, Padua, Venice, Naples, Brescia, Rome, Modena, Frosinone, Potenza, Rieti, Lecce, Palermo and Syracuse. But the list is much longer. The judiciary has also already started moving: the Genoa Prosecutor's Office, for example, has opened a case for causing alarm, interruption of public service and serious threats, crimes which could be aggravated by the aim of terrorism. Already in recent days around 200 principals of schools of all levels had received a similar report.

After the threats that have reached thousands of Italian schools, including in Lombardy, "the invitation is to remain calm and follow the communications of the schools and competent authorities": this was underlined by the Lombardy Region Education Councilor Simona Tironi, who contacted the police to take stock of the situation. "We are in constant contact to have a direct update on the institutes involved," he explained. "I understand the concern of families, students and all school staff. As the mother of a young student, I do not deny that the evacuation of classes following a bomb scare has repercussions on the psychological level of the children and leaves its mark. The important thing is to identify the perpetrators of what is happening as soon as possible."

In the evening, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a video on social media: "To date there is no element that indicates a concrete danger. These messages are not intended to attack, they are intended to scare. Those who write them want above all our fear, the lost days, the suspicion, the chaos. The investigators and the judiciary together with their European colleagues are working on who is behind them. I will not make hypotheses, when there are certainties you will know them". The Prime Minister indicated the three elements that emerged on the school bomb scares, also following the outcome of the meeting she chaired at Palazzo Chigi with the relevant ministers, intelligence and cybersecurity leaders.

"Today thousands of Italian schools received a message announcing a bomb. In many institutions the children were let out, the police checked room by room and I'll tell you the most important thing straight away, nothing was found in any school. I know that for many families it was a day of fear or discomfort, I understand it, clearly I don't underestimate it", said Meloni again, who also added: "We will not allow an anonymous email to decide the school calendar of our children".

"Since the establishment of this government, the complexity of the cyber threat has appeared clear and it has been decided to address it with transparency, rigor and speed. The episodes recalled confirm that we are faced with a transversal phenomenon with a predominantly international matrix", said the Minister for Relations with Parliament Luca Ciriani during the question time in the Chamber regarding the bomb scares. "At the moment, a common feature has been recognized in all the episodes examined, namely the intention on the part of the hackers to create elements of destabilization and to spread alarms, which later proved to be unfounded". And then he added: "The issue is central to national security, just as safety in schools constitutes an absolute priority for public order and the serenity of families: as regards what happened today in numerous schools, the government is following the evolution of the situation with the utmost attention; the students and staff of the schools involved were immediately evacuated and the necessary clean-ups were carried out. Furthermore, all investigations and checks are underway, also in relation to similar recent episodes".

Bomb scares in schools are an example of a hybrid attack, an immaterial threat at limited cost and capable of generating destabilizing impacts in the social fabric, to the point of undermining citizens' trust and making the emergency the new everyday life, thus undermining democracy: this was said by Arije Antinori, professor of Criminology at Sapienza University of Rome and expert at the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalization (Eukh), the European Commission initiative launched in 2024 to counter violent extremism and terrorism in Member States. "Alarms in schools are an immaterial threat that has consequences at a social, cognitive and institutional level. That is, they exploit the ordinary functioning of society to multiply a destabilizing effect" and "the school - observed the expert - is crucial because it is the entrance door to an interdependent system made up of families, institutions, media and public opinion, which are supported by a relationship of trust". In practice, "the system of relationships is attacked", "the institutions are overloaded with tasks" and an environment is created in which it becomes difficult to recognize an authentic threat from a false one. Furthermore, "everything becomes a critical infrastructure, even everyday life". The aim is to "bring our system into crisis" and "induce us to take steps backwards in democratic processes".

The alarms are not just affecting Italy. In fact, over 300 schools in Northern Ireland received a bomb threat via email and some were evacuated. The local police later confirmed that these were false alarms. The message also reached institutes in Scotland. The police explained that the checks did not detect "anything anomalous" and the sending of the message, the same for all institutions, started from outside the United Kingdom. A similar situation had already occurred on October 19th.