Police investigating after 160 schools receive ‘Islamist’ bomb threats

Over 150 schools in Northern Ireland received bomb threats which are not being treated as viable, Stormont education minister Paul Givan has said.

He told reporters at Stormont: “This morning 160 schools received a threat reporting – it would appear to me from Islamists threatening that Sharia law will be brought into our country and that there is viable devices within those school settings and it was signed off ‘Allah Akbar’.

“That has been escalated to the PSNI, and the Education Authority are having emergency meetings with the police this morning. At this stage the advice to schools is that we’re not treating this as a viable threat but it has clearly caused huge alarm.

“Some schools have closed as a result of this threat being received through formal communication channels to those schools, something that I absolutely condemn that there has been this level of disruption caused to young people’s education.

“But obviously, we are working through a process with the PSNI in terms of dealing with that email that was communicated to those schools. We’ve advised schools to be in contact with their local policing district commands, and unless they have a specifically identified object in their school, that isn’t something that should warrant them taking any further action whereby they are closing.

“But obviously, this is something that ought to be condemned by everybody, and I am hugely disappointed that for some schools they have had to close, but it is not something that we are regarding as a viable threat, but nevertheless, hugely disruptive and very distressing.”