Europe’s Bomb Threats Raise Fears of Hybrid Warfare

A wave of bomb threats this week targeted dozens of flights across Europe before expanding to include newsrooms, leaving authorities scrambling to find those responsible. The bomb threats—all since identified as hoaxes—came through almost daily via anonymous calls and emails beginning Nov. 2.

On Monday, a Wizz Air flight traveling from London to Bulgaria was diverted after a bomb threat was received mid-flight, making an emergency landing in Budapest. At least seven passenger flights were targeted the following day, which led to emergency landings, searches, and diversions. More than two dozen additional flights were targeted Thursday, and threats continued into Friday.

Authorities, including the U.K. Transport Secretary, have since described them as "hoaxes," as no attacks were carried out and each affected flight was landed safely. But the hoaxes were not harmless; they affected thousands of people's flight plans, struck fear into potential travelers, and impacted the carefully structured aviation ecosystem.

The malicious efforts expanded Friday when a warning was sent by email to several European broadcasters claiming that bombs had been planted in their buildings, forcing evacuations at outlets like Sky News, Bulgaria's Nova TV, and Irish public broadcaster RTÉ.

"What happened this week is just a small part of what awaits Europe in the near future," the message sent to broadcasters said, according to Reuters.

European Union Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas strongly condemned the threats on X on Friday, saying that he has activated EU-level aviation security information-sharing mechanisms. He added that it was "too early" to draw conclusions on whether the hoaxes were linked.

Ireland's government, meanwhile, said Friday that "it seems likely that this is a co-ordinated campaign of disruption."

Experts tell TIME that the threats themselves might be the point—launching a fear campaign meant to disrupt systems and put millions of people on edge.

Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which is a nonpartisan think tank for global affairs based in D.C., says that these kinds of threats fall into what she calls "gray zone conflicts," meaning that they're "in the gray zone between war and peace."

For example, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told an Italian news station on Friday that "what's being attacked is civilian infrastructure," rather than military or weapons infrastructure. This puts European nations in a tight spot, Braw says, especially if the actor is another nation.

"If you attack another country's military, that country's military will strike back. That is the nature of war," she explains. "Whereas if you target civilian infrastructure, what is that country going to do? It's not going to respond with military means, simply because then you would have war."

"What is concerning this time is it's such a significant number, and the fact that these have come in such close succession, and it comes against the background of all these other attacks and really geopolitically motivated crimes targeting European countries," Braw adds, referencing another destabilization operation that recently hit Europe.

At the same time, he continues, there is no way yet to discount that this is an individual or non-state-affiliated group exploiting safety standards in the region to "cause chaos."

Until they do, disruptions to airports are likely to continue, Jordan says. Even suspected hoaxes demand serious consideration, Braw adds, given the potentially devastating consequences of a real attack.

"You have to take every threat seriously in the sector, but especially in aviation, where the consequences would be so utterly devastating if an incident were successful, and so that's why we have seen all these airliners making emergency landings," she says. "All of that causes disruption and it causes anxiety among passengers, and it also causes significant financial costs and losses for the airlines."

French prosecutors are investigating whether foreign powers are connected to the bomb threats, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Saturday. The purpose of the investigation is to find "the authors of the emails who disseminated this false information ... and to determine any potential links they may have to foreign powers," the Paris prosecutor's office is quoted as saying.

Some of the emails were signed "fighters of the Male State," which matches the name of a radical misogynist group in Russia, though there has been no confirmed link, according to AFP. The group's founder, Vladislav Pozdniakov, denied any involvement, saying on social media Friday that the "movement does not exist since 2021."