Bomb threats warning “the clock is ticking” were sent to television stations across Europe on Friday, November 6, prompting evacuations and suspended programming, Reuters reported from Dublin and London. Warnings went to Ireland's public broadcaster RTE, Britain's Sky and Bulgaria's private station Nova TV, among others, the companies said — and no bombs were found at any affected site.

Source: Reuters via SRN News

At RTE in Dublin, programmes were replaced by music and a pre-recorded message, some for as long as three hours, while staff were evacuated and police swept the campus for more than three hours before employees were allowed back, Reuters said. Irish reporting said other Irish media — Virgin Media, Newstalk radio and The Irish Independent newspaper — also received hoax threats.

Source: Reuters via SRN News / Irish government reporting via syndication

‘Message to the West’ — and a signature claiming the plane hoaxes

“We want the whole world to know about us, which is why one of our operatives has planted an explosive device in your building,” read one email received by Nova and RTE on Friday. “It will detonate in 45 minutes. The clock is ticking.” The emails were titled “MESSAGE TO THE WEST” and signed with the name Mikhail Andropov, whose message said the author was one of the leaders of a group responsible for this week's plane hoaxes, Reuters reported.

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Police came to the Nova newsroom in Sofia, which was evacuated, checked and declared safe; broadcasting was not interrupted and employees returned to their desks, the broadcasters said. Sky confirmed it had received a threat; the reports did not say its London studios were evacuated.

Source: Reuters via SRN News / EuropeSays

The purported author shared a surname with Yuri Andropov, a former general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the email title echoed a biography of Andropov called “New Challenge to the West”. Reuters said it was unclear whether that was a sign of Russian involvement or an attempt to point the finger at Moscow — the sender's identity has not been established, and no evidence linking the threats to Russia, Iran or any state has been made public.

Source: Reuters via SRN News

From flights to newsrooms: a week of hoaxes

Friday's alerts follow the string of hoax bomb threats that disrupted passenger flights from Serbia to Finland to Spain in recent days, forcing diversions, emergency landings and security sweeps — with no explosives found — and a further round on Friday also disrupted flights, according to the reports. The media threats explicitly claimed responsibility for that aviation campaign and warned: “But this is only the beginning. What happened this week is just a small part of what awaits Europe in the near future.”

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Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said European security agencies had not yet determined whether the threats to air travel and media organisations were being made by individuals or as part of a coordinated attack. “It just illustrates how relatively simple it can be to cause disruption and to undermine the normal operation of society through unconventional activities of this kind, which are designed to cause disruption, designed to cause fear and anxiety,” Martin told RTE radio after news programming resumed from an outside broadcast unit. “We have to remain calm,” he added.

Source: Reuters via SRN News

What happens next: police and security agencies across the affected countries are investigating the origin of the emails, and whether the aviation and media threats share one source. For now every threat in this wave has proved a hoax — but each one still forces evacuations, sweeps and grounded or diverted flights, which is the disruption the senders appear to be seeking.

Source: Reuters via SRN News

Friday's newsroom threats are the newest turn in the hoax campaign that disrupted 25 flights across Europe on Thursday. Read: 25 flights disrupted by hoax bomb threats on Thursday