Schools in Italy, Scotland and Northern Ireland hit by threats in suspected bomb hoax

The BBC has seen the email sent to Scottish schools which appeared to have similar wording, and also referenced the name Mikhail Andropov, although as leader of a "Red Owl" project.

Italy's Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said the incidents involving Italian schools were probably a "cyber-attack, not a genuine risk", adding that there appeared to be a clear strategy behind the rash of threats in across Europe targeting flights, supermarkets and even hospitals.

Italian airports along with airlines elsewhere in Europe were hit by a series of bomb hoaxes last week that prompted a series of scares, evacuations and widespread disruption.

Although a number of threats were claimed by an extremist misogynistic group, it later denied any link to the false warnings.

On Wednesday one Milan headteacher, Anna Bertato, told Italian media she had checked the email address of the sender online: "It was already classified as spam by a student at a university in Taiwan."

Another Milan headteacher, Massimo Nunzio Barrella, told Adnkronos news agency that he had immediately realised the email was spam when it arrived in his inbox at 08:59 and he decided not to evacuate his school and reassured parents who phoned in.

"The text seemed almost comical," said Barrella, "it was like a message from Martians: 'We have come to annihilate you.' I even had a bit of a laugh."

Although many schools were initially evacuated on Wednesday, the alarm was quickly lifted, and pupils were allowed to return to class. Some parents decided to take their children home for the day, but the majority of schools in Milan did not send their pupils home.

Some 280 school head teachers had already received threats in recent days, according to Italian reports.

In a statement, the head of the central Umbria region Stefania Proietti said "checks conducted so far in Umbrian schools have proved negative, and law enforcement is working rapidly and carefully to verify each report".