Crime: “Age of uncertainty” – Italy puzzles over wave of bomb threats against schools

Rome. A massive wave of bomb threats forced hundreds of schools to evacuate in Italy on Wednesday and spread fear among students, teachers and parents. The threat was sent as a mass email to more than 6,000 schools.

In the evening the government met for an emergency meeting. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni then addressed the population in a video to reassure them. "Whoever did this wanted a frozen, frightened nation. But they will see a nation that will wake up tomorrow, take their children to school and go to work," she said. Meloni assured that there was never any concrete danger. No dangerous material was found in any school.

But that wasn't the all-clear, as it turned out a little later. On Thursday another bomb threat was made to around 1,800 schools. It had the same return address as the day before. However, this time the government ordered schools to continue classes as planned because it does not consider the threat to be credible.

The massive threats against schools have awakened the Italian public. They are just the latest incidents in a series that has unsettled the country since the beginning of November. Newspapers are already talking about an “age of uncertainty” that the population must arm themselves against, and are puzzling over its origins. Suspicions range from hybrid warfare by Russia to internet trolls and copycats.

The events in Italy fit into a European context in which similar incidents occurred in several countries. While the situation is still unclear, cases are particularly increasing in Italy. The series began there on November 2nd, when 279 schools received a bomb threat. The sender called himself the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard”. No bombs were found.

On the same day there was a series of hacker attacks on supermarkets in several EU countries. In Italy, branches in Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Sicily were also affected. The attackers attempted to digitally manipulate the temperature of refrigerators. This was partially successful, so that food had to be thrown away. Other attacks failed.

Several flights had to be rerouted, resulting in delays and changed schedules. In one case, Italian fighter jets took off to escort a plane. In no case was a bomb found on board.

In addition to the economic damage, which the Italian transport expert Andrea Giuricin from the University of Milan Bicocca puts at "several million euros per flight", the headlines about bomb threats that have been going on for days are causing uncertainty among the population. Unrest increased in many places on Wednesday as news of the threats to schools spread. As a result, even schools that had not received any threats offered parents the opportunity to pick up their children as a precaution.

It is still unclear who is behind the attacks. Italian Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said on Wednesday that there could be a “broader strategy” behind it: “We must be vigilant, but also aware that we must prepare ourselves accordingly in an environment in which hybrid war is increasingly used as a means of destabilizing nations and economies,” said Valditara.

The European security authorities have begun investigations into the bomb threats against air traffic. In Italy, the anti-mafia and anti-terror unit is also investigating the series. But it is also conceivable that there are free riders behind it who want to fuel the climate of uncertainty. This is supported, among other things, by the imaginative sender name of the threats against schools. It reads “Mikhail Andropov, Leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan.” The last part reads like a reference to the misogynistic depths of the Internet.