Europe bomb hoaxes widen

Fresh bomb threats are now targeting European broadcasters as a wave of security scares have spread across the continent. Ireland's national broadcaster RTE was evacuated today, while Britain's Sky News and Bulgaria's Nova TV also received threats. Earlier, 11 flights were targeted on Friday, with fighter jets scrambled over Hungary and aircrafts diverted across Europe. No explosives have been found. European officials suspect a coordinated campaign of hybrid warfare with Spain warning of a psychological warfare. Some threatening emails also claim links to a Russian extremist group. No government has been implicated thus far. Jenny Shin has the latest. Amid heavy police presence, employees of Ireland's national broadcaster RTE are evacuated following bomb threats against its network. Programming has been suspended, with radio broadcasts resuming from a mobile unit outside its headquarters. The Guardi, working in cooperation with the Defence Forces and our Cyber and Aviation Authorities, are working to establish who is responsible. These threats come on the heels of the ongoing disruption to aviation around Europe caused by similar threats, and it seems likely that this is a coordinated campaign of disruption. It's among several TV stations across Europe to receive such threats. And comes as a host of commercial flights on the continent were hit by similar warnings this week, forcing authorities to reroute some planes and prompting emergency landings, each flight disruption costing airlines as much as $250,000. The Spanish foreign minister says the threats against flights are likely to be a coordinated operation. What is clear is that it cannot be a coincidence that so many identical incidents are occurring throughout Europe with the same modus operandi. It's clear that these people are acting in this way in order to weaken Europe. It comes against the backdrop of warnings about an increase in hybrid attacks across Europe, including on supermarket refrigeration systems and drone incursions earlier this week. An email sent to RTE warned that this week's events are, quote, just a small part of what awaits Europe in the near future. For more, let's bring in Eric Schulten, founder and CEO of Diami Security Intelligence, who's joining us from Utrecht in the Netherlands. Thank you so much, Eric. Just before we get on to the main meat of the issue, I want to throw to something that Giorgio Meloni said, the Italian prime minister today, about what is happening around the continent. If we could just take a listen to her. People are working, we're not in a hurry. We are not yet in a position to say whether the attack on France's blood banks, the false bomb threats on planes, Or the attack targeting food products are all connected. Thank However, they certainly all tell us the same thing. That today, it is civilian infrastructure that is under attack. Sotto attacco sono infrastrutture civili. Eric, back to you there. Giorgio Meloni is saying it's not clear yet whether these are all coordinated. In your experience though, would you say they are? you. And then, who is to blame? Yeah, so when I'm looking at scenarios, I truly think that this is hybrid warfare done by Russia. And of course, we cannot prove it yet. And that's the problem with hybrid warfare. We are not able to pinpoint right away who it is and why they're doing this. However, we have to keep an open mind in that this is happening and not look away. So you're saying that we are seeing all the hallmarks, basically, of a destabilization campaign, that do they bear the same markings as we've seen previously in any other situation, or the fact that this is all happening all at once, is this unprecedented? This is a next step on what we have been seeing. So before we saw smaller incursions, but they were still big. I mean, looking at railroad sabotage acts, we looked at drone activity all over Europe, and now this. And it's all adding up, and it's faster behind each other. So now before it was every month, then every week, and now every other day. So we really have to understand that we'll have to get used to this until we get a resolution to it. What do you think is behind the timing of this? I mean, the war with Ukraine is nothing new. This has been going on for a long time. And Europe's response has been also quite constant. So if we are going to point the finger at what you say is Russian optics, I mean, it doesn't really make sense that would happen right now. So why right now? Well, there are several things happening in Europe right now. We are seeing several large events with world leaders coming together and talking about the next steps in Ukraine. But we're also seeing that we are working on supporting Ukraine way more than before. So we really have to understand that it's all these next steps that are happening, that there will be a counter-reaction. And Russia is seeing this as defending themselves. So they take a proactive... measures to defend themselves, because they feel that we are attacking them. It's a different way of thinking, but we have to understand that as well. Of course, we have to reiterate that there has been no word from the Kremlin, and certainly this is all conjecture at this point in time. Yes. Now, the fact of the matter is that we have seen fighter jets scrambled over anonymous emails of bomb threats. Now, what does this tell us about the European intelligence services and what does it tell us about our European security that fighter jets can be scrambled over something anonymous and something so innocuous as an anonymous message? Well you have to look at the history of why we're doing that. Aviation security is based on rules and regulations that exist because something happened in the past and we are still scrambling fighter jets because something happened in the past and now we have to deal with multiple incidents at the same day and that's not where the system is built for. We are dealing with hoax calls with no intents to blow up planes. So we have to stay calm. We have to look at this, stepping back and understand that this is hybrid warfare, not per se to shoot down planes or to make put explosions of planes. And we kind of have to trust the system. But then again, having said that, rules and regulations exist. So airlines cannot just ignore this and think, oh, it's just a hoax call. They have to act on this and follow procedures. Absolutely. There is, of course, protocol. Now, it's not just the airlines. It's also television broadcasters, as we've seen today. Sky, Nova in Bulgaria. We've seen RT in Ireland. Now, I mean, how much are the French broadcasters at risk? I do have to ask on behalf of this country. The same. I mean, I was actually in the call live with the Irish broadcaster and I warned them that the next step will also be media and other sectors. And a little bit later, they got the phone call with the bomb report. Right. So things are working and it's not just aviation at the moment. It's also other sectors. So be prepared. And how do we be prepared without this descending into chaos? As a society we need to be prepared, as companies we need to be prepared, and as governments we need to be prepared. So I also suggest that if your flight gets cancelled and you are frustrated, you know don't put it out at the cabin crew, but understand what is happening and why they're doing this. And if we all work together on this as a society and kind of understand what's happening, then we can work on other solutions to kind of counter these hybrid warfare problems. Certainly a communal effort. Eric, just a final question. As you've alluded to earlier in this interview, you said this is a pattern of hybrid warfare. What specific evidence would distinguish a state-sponsored operation from copycat hoaxes in this instance? That's very interesting because we probably are seeing the same things happening, right? So there's a hybrid warfare, probably agents that don't even know they're working for Russia, right? Up to the copycat system, but also think that people are doing this because they earn a living, they get some money, and they just want to do it. Eric Scoulton, thank you so, so much for your expert analysis here on France 24. Very interesting. And certainly we are still in the early stages of all of this, but now flights, blood banks, and even broadcasters all affected.