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The threats were false, but goal of throwing the country into turmoil has been achieved (Ph Reuters)
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Bomb Threats Target More Than 6,000 Schools Across Italy, Triggering Evacuations and Chaos
School principals made their own decisions, with no coordinated response. Authorities suspect a deliberate campaign rather than the work of a lone prankster.
ROME — “At my signal, unleash chaos.” Whoever orchestrated the wave of fake bomb threats targeting schools across Italy, accompanied by the message “We will annihilate you,” remains unknown. But the apparent goal of throwing the country into turmoil has been achieved.
At 9:56 a.m., emails arrived in the inboxes of 6,300 schools, warning that a “powerful” bomb was about to explode. “I have just left it in your building, in a plastic bag,” wrote someone identifying himself as “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan” — an invented name apparently intended to mock, and perhaps allude to, the label used to claim responsibility for bomb threats against aircraft in recent days.
“The device has a remote-controlled detonator and has been positioned so that the blast wave will spread throughout the building,” the email continued.
Police received 2,800 reports, and 1,100 school principals decided to evacuate the institutions targeted in the blitz. Schools from north to south were thrown into disarray, with the sole exceptions of the autonomous regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and Valle d’Aosta, whose institutions use different email domains. Among the areas affected were Piedmont, with 463 schools; Rome and its surrounding province, as well as Tuscany, with 400 each; and Milan and its surrounding area, with 250. Liguria reported around 20 cases.
Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara believes the attacks point to “a strategy, rather than a single attention-seeking individual.” Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said it was “too early to speak of a coordinated operation,” while Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said someone was seeking to “spread terror or cause alarm.”
The threats were false. Schools across Italy are expected to open as usual today.
“There is no reason to decide otherwise,” officials said in government circles. In the evening, Valditara sought to “reassure everyone. Children will be able to go to school without any problems. The aim of these idiots or criminals is to trigger panic. We need to keep things in perspective.”
But questions remain about how to defend against and contain cyberattacks and coordinated waves of threatening emails — and how to respond when they happen. “This is not a matter of concern, but of organization,” said University and Research Minister Anna Maria Bernini.
At schools, responsibility for security rests with the principals. There is no single nationwide protocol. School heads must assess the emergency and decide whether or not to evacuate. Some sent students home; others, including the Gioberti and Berti high schools in Turin, gathered them in schoolyards or on the street. Still others, such as Massimo Nunzio Barrella, Principal of Milan’s Parini classical high school, decided to continue classes “because the content of the email was truly surreal.”
Some teachers, hoping not to frighten their students — particularly younger children — presented the evacuation as a kind of game, “an escape drill.” Others used the incident to discuss the concept of hybrid warfare with their classes.
Parents’ group chats were flooded with messages, and some people added to the confusion by sharing fake news about intercepted bombs and explosions.
Police officers and Carabinieri searched the schools. No explosives were found anywhere. But despite the email’s almost ridiculous tone, the threat cannot simply be dismissed as a prank. The strategy is clear: to subject countries to constant stress tests, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish genuine threats from false alarms.
Prosecutors across Italy, including in Rome and Milan, are awaiting reports from the Postal Police. They may open investigations on charges including causing public alarm and public intimidation.
Government institutions and schools are now trying to work out how to respond to these new forms of digital attack. Piedmont Gov. Alberto Cirio has called a meeting for today with the prefect, the regional school office and the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI).
The government is urging caution: it is too early to speak with certainty of an international plot or a single coordinating force. The situation remains complex and murky.
One thing is certain, however: yesterday, further fake bomb threats sent by email targeted schools in London and Scotland, as well as Ireland — host of the next European summit — Serbia and Hungary.
