French, UK schools on alert after threat

Around 20 schools in France and Britain were placed on bomb alert on Thursday following another round of telephone threats, the second in a week.

The police was sent to secure five of the most prestigious schools in Paris after bomb threats were phoned in, and the British police said it was probing threats at 14 schools in central England believed to be “false and malicious.”

“At this stage there is nothing to suggest there is any credible threat to any of the schools,” said detective inspector Colin Mattinson of the West Midlands police, the force that covers the city of Birmingham.

The British media said four schools in London had been evacuated, although this was not confirmed.

The threats come two days after six Paris schools and 14 in Britain were evacuated on Tuesday following hoax bomb threats.

Those threats were claimed by a Twitter account calling itself the Evacuation Squad, with a profile picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The account featured previous messages in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, a security exercise gone wrong saw tempers flare in a Paris airport, after fake explosive devices were discovered by FedEx workers in a ripped package, sources said on Thursday.

Employees of the American courier service at Charles de Gaulle airport were shocked to find a pressure cooker filled with nuts and bolts inside a package in transit from the US to Tunisia.

On further inspection they discovered a container of other similar devices, along with what appeared to be detonators, said Frederic Petit, who represents the company’s employees for the CGT union.

The staff alerted authorities of “imminent danger,” and officials arrived to test the device using sniffer dogs and X-ray machines.

A security source at the airport said the devices were decoys bound for the US embassy in Tunisia that were being used for a training exercise.

“This type of delivery is not common, but sometimes takes place,” the source said.