Fake bomb threats affect almost 30 flights in Europe

This Thursday (5), almost 30 flights from Europe had to be cancelled, divert routes or make emergency landings due to false bomb threats.

At Warsaw airport, in Poland, passengers caught soldiers approaching to check a bomb alert. Italian military fighters escorted a plane to Rome airport. One that departed from Dublin, Ireland, with 151 passengers, was unable to reach the Italian capital as planned. He had to make an emergency landing at an air base in northern France.

This Thursday alone (5) there were almost 30 threats, which arrived via anonymous calls, messages and emails on routes that cross the continent - from Portugal to Greece, from the United Kingdom to Austria. So far, all threats have been false. No inspection by authorities confirmed the presence of explosives.

It was the second wave of bomb threats this week in Europe. On Tuesday (3), at least seven planes and a cruise ship were targeted. Even without explosives found, false alerts have real impacts.

The European Union's transport chief said it was too early to conclude that the threats were related. But experts see connections and suspect a strategy that appears to be spreading: "hybrid warfare." One of the main hypotheses is that Russia and, possibly, even Iran are behind the attacks to provoke fear in the population.

"Hybrid warfare combines a series of low-cost actions, but which can bring a very large disruptive effect to countries and influence the population, weakening the country from the inside out. Using, for example, sabotage, disinformation, cyber attacks", says Jorge Lasmar, professor of International Relations at PUC Minas.

Attacks like those that the continent also saw this week, when hackers disabled, for the second time, refrigeration systems in supermarkets in several countries, and even in blood banks in France.

"So, they use fear in a strategic way. They seek to erode civil society's trust in institutions, in the State's essential public services. And this can, in turn, end up transforming into political pressure on companies, even on the government itself. These are all actions that fit within this idea of ​​hybrid war that has been understood by NATO, in recent years, as one of the great threats of contemporary geopolitics", says Jorge Lasmar.