A flurry of false bomb threats — targeting hundreds of American Jewish institutions over the past weekend — are believed to have come from outside the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigations said in a message to prominent Jewish organizations.
“At the time, based on similar language and specific email tradecraft used, it appears the perpetrators of these threats are connected,” the message reads. “Additionally, these threats appear to be originating from outside of the United States.”
The FBI clarified that none of the threats have come to pass, nor have they resulted in any “credible risk or harm to congregants.”
On Saturday, the Secure Community Network (SCN), which states as its mission ensuring “the safety, security, and resiliency of the Jewish community in North America, issued a press release saying that, in the previous 24 hours, it had “tracked a staggering 199 (and counting) swatting incidents and false bomb threats across the country targeting Jewish facilities, including 93 in California, 62 in Arizona, 15 in Connecticut, five in Colorado, and four in Washington state, among others.”
“Swatting” is the practice of placing deceptive calls to emergency service response teams to compel them to send a police unit — often a SWAT team, as the term suggests — or paramedics to a location at which no incident has occurred.
“In the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel,” the statement continues, “the Secure Community Network has logged record highs in security incidents and antisemitic activity, with a record 772 incidents logged in October and 634 in November, up 290% from the year prior — incidents including vandalism, harassment, and assault among other acute threats and actions.”
One such incident in a long list that has occurred since October 7 took place in Washington, D.C., Sunday, outside the Kesher Israel Synagogue. The suspect, who has been identified as Ohio native Brent Wood, faces charges of simple assault and resisting arrest after allegedly spraying two congregants with an unknown substance and yelling, “Gas the Jews.”