Europe Flight Bomb Threats Yield One Lead: Rome Airport Received Email Claiming to Be From 'Fighters of the Male State'
LONDON — BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner reported on November 5 that a wave of hoax bomb threats against European air travel had struck for the second time in a week, and that as of Thursday evening no hard evidence had emerged linking the threats to Russia, Iran or any proxy group they control. The only concrete lead is an emailed threat sent to Rome airport authorities on Thursday morning, claiming to come from the "Fighters of the Male State."
The name may refer to the Russian group Muzhskoi Legion, or "Male Legion," a far-right group banned by a Moscow court in 2021 but still counting tens of thousands of online followers on Telegram the following year, which cheered Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The report stressed that even if the email is genuine — and it could be another group using the name — it is unlikely to help police and airport authorities pin down who made the threats or why; investigators should follow solid leads rather than judging by the most likely suspect. The threats have hit airline after airline and airport after airport; with the notable exception of London's Heathrow Airport, almost all were deemed credible enough to divert aircraft, and Italy scrambled fighter jets; all ultimately proved false. The simultaneous, coordinated nature of the threats, alongside other hostile activity in Europe, has led some to suspect Russia: the background includes a series of cyberattacks earlier this year and mystery drone sightings over sensitive sites, the remote hacking of supermarket freezers and a blood bank in recent days, suspicious incidents on the Polish-Russian border, and a drone attack on Leipzig Halle airport in Germany in August, which the German interior minister publicly blamed on Moscow. Some Russian bloggers have argued that since Ukrainian drones have made Russian airports unsafe and Western sanctions keep Russian airlines out of European airspace, Western countries should feel the same pain. The UK government has called the threats a "malicious hoax threat."
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Source: BBC
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：意大利罗马菲乌米奇诺机场（资料图）。Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Rome Fiumicino Airport, Italy (file photo). Wikimedia Commons.
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