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Updated at 21:01 (Italian time) 7 Nov 2026

Europe Saturday, 7 November 2026 · AI-generated content, without human review

Bomb threats: Madrid speaks of psychological warfare after new evacuations

After the second wave of false alarms recorded yesterday, the first institutional reactions arrive: the Irish government suggests a coordinated campaign, the Spanish foreign minister speaks of hybrid aggression, Moscow denies involvement.

Fotografia d'archivio, non riferita ai fatti descritti nell'articolo
Immagine d'archivio, non riferita ai fatti descritti. Foto di Keegan Checks su Pexels

After the second consecutive day of false bomb threats against flights, airports and newsrooms in Europe, the first public institutional reactions to the phenomenon are emerging. Among the most significant episodes are the evacuations that affected newspaper and television newsrooms in Dublin, which took place on the eve of a European summit. This is reported by Geopolitical Briefings and Sarno Notizie. No explosive device has been found in any of the searches conducted following the alerts, a factor that reinforces the hypothesis of a campaign of threats posing no immediate physical danger but still capable of generating operational disruptions and widespread public alarm.

The Irish government has spoken of a likely coordinated campaign behind the sequence of threats, without providing further details on their origin. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has also taken a public stance, describing the wave of alerts as a hybrid aggression.

“hybrid aggression and psychological warfare” — José Manuel Albares, Spanish Foreign Minister

Moscow has denied any involvement in the matter, according to the same source. Investigators, Geopolitical Briefings reports, are currently trying to establish whether there is a link between this wave of bomb threats and the cyberattacks that in recent weeks have hit infrastructure and civilian services in several European countries — a thread that, if confirmed, would turn apparently unrelated episodes into a single campaign against the continent’s public security. The hypothesis of a single orchestrating hand has not been verified by investigators.

At present, none of the sources consulted point to a confirmed origin for the alerts, nor to an identified perpetrator: the statements from Dublin and Madrid remain political hypotheses, not conclusions of a formal investigation. The matter falls within a context of growing attention to the cyber and physical security of European infrastructure, in which false alarms and digital sabotage are now being examined jointly by the observers cited in the available sources.

Second wave of bomb threats hits European flights and newsrooms

A campaign of coordinated threats hit dozens of flights and media outlets in Ireland and the United Kingdom on November 6. Checks found no explosives, but authorities still do not know who is behind it.

Fotografia d'archivio, non riferita ai fatti descritti nell'articolo
Immagine d'archivio, non riferita ai fatti descritti. Foto di Ian Porce su Pexels

On November 6, Europe experienced a second consecutive day of hoax bomb threats, following the previous day’s incidents that had already involved at least 25 flights. According to RaiNews, in the 24 hours preceding November 6 at least 30 threats targeted as many flights in the continent’s skies, with concrete repercussions on the air network.

A Wizz Air flight departing from Prague and bound for Rome was diverted to Venice. A Ryanair aircraft that had taken off from Fiumicino landed in Lisbon after a threat. The most significant case concerns Aer Lingus flight EI402, which departed from Dublin bound for Rome: according to RTÉ, the flight was diverted to the Évreux air base in France.

At the same time, the threat shifted from the skies to newsrooms. RTÉ reports that at 8:33 on November 6 an email with the subject line “MESSAGE TO THE WEST” was sent to public addresses of several media organisations in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Within an hour, staff at some Irish newsrooms were evacuated and radio and television programming was interrupted: among the sites involved were those of the public broadcaster RTÉ and the newspaper Irish Independent in Dublin.

Irish authorities, quoted by RTÉ, admit they still do not know who is responsible for the incidents, nor whether these are isolated actions or a centralised campaign. The element common to the cases — an identical email sent simultaneously to multiple outlets in two different countries — suggests coordination, but at present there has been no claim of responsibility nor confirmed attribution.

On the institutional level, the European Commission has clarified that investigations into this type of threat do not fall within its direct competence, remaining the responsibility of individual member states. Brussels does, however, maintain an information-sharing mechanism among affected countries, useful for verifying whether the incidents are connected to one another or represent unrelated initiatives.

The phenomenon poses a problem of scale even before one of security: dozens of flights diverted or forced to land at airports other than their intended destination, together with evacuations of newsrooms in multiple countries on the same day, entail significant operational and logistical costs even when — as reported by the sources cited — checks find no actual device. The repetition of threats over two consecutive days, in the absence of an identified source, leaves it to national authorities to determine whether these are isolated disruptive episodes or part of a broader strategy against transport and information infrastructure.

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