Twitter used to claim bomb threats

YEREVAN, January 30, /ARKA/. At least 16 times in the past four days, a bomb threat on Twitter disrupted travel and frustrated airlines, Lenta.ru reported citing USA Today.

American Airlines Flight 1192 from Los Angeles landed safely in Chicago after a tweet purportedly from the Islamic State threatened that there was a bomb on the 737-800.

Also, a now-suspended Twitter account called @RansomTheThug claimed there was a bomb on board United Airlines flight 223, which was scheduled to travel from Newark, N.J., to Miami Tuesday afternoon. 

The flight was cancelled two days ago in preparation for the blizzard-like conditions which hit the Northeast Monday night and Tuesday, United Airlines spokeswoman said.

At least 10 threats were made Monday, some by hacker-type accounts. One led to a JetBlue flight from Boston to Palm Beach being returned to the gate before takeoff. The flight was canceled. The plane was searched and luggage rescreened; nothing hazardous was found.

That followed a weekend of Twitter bomb threats against flights. Sunday, one commercial flight was diverted, and two others were evacuated. Saturday in Atlanta, two flights in the air were escorted to their landings by military F-16 fighter jets after bomb threats were tweeted.

Last April, a 14-year-old Dutch girl was arrested after she tweeted a terror threat to American Airlines. A Twitter user calling herself Sarah and using the handle @QueenDemetriax tweeted, "@AmericanAir hello my name's Ibrahim and I'm from Afghanistan. I'm part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I'm gonna do something really big."

American Airlines responded from its Twitter account: "@QueenDemetriax Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI." The girl was charged in the Netherlands with "posting a false or alarming announcement," according to a news account of the incident provided by Twitter.

The investigations are looking for online "footprints" of the people who sent the threats. They can track the IP address" where an online threat originated. Internet service providers are presumably cooperating with the investigation.-0-