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Social Media Explodes as Twitter Users Issue Bomb Threats

Dozens of people have taken to Twitter in the past 24 hours to tweet bomb threats at major airlines, including American Airlines and Southwest. Their actions follow the arrest of a Dutch teenager, identified as Sarah, after she tweeted a bomb threat to American Airlines on Sunday.

On her public account, Sarah tweeted "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 bye" to American Airlines, The Washington Post reports. Following the tweet, Sarah made her Twitter account private and said that it was a joke, but not before American reported her name and IP address to the authorities, leading to her arrest on Monday in Rotterdam.

According to a Netherlands police spokesman who spoke with the AP, Sarah turned herself in to the authorities and was accompanied by a parent, reports USA TODAY. It's unclear if she will face charges for her actions.

After her arrest, dozens of Twitter users have taken to the social medium to send out their own bomb-related messages. One tweet was sent by a user identified as Army Jacket on the account @ShyyLicious and said "@AmericanAir I have a bomb under the next plane to take off." That account has since been suspended.

Additional bomb threats and related messages have continued to be tweeted out by various users, including from a user identified as James Duthie, which appears to be a mock account of sportscaster James Duthie.

Other users posted their bomb related tweets, only to remove them from Twitter later such as a user identified as Will.

Other Twitter users are taking the opportunity to send out tweets that are more joking in nature, seeming topoke fun at the situation.

Airlines take threats seriously, even when they're made through social media and may seem silly, the Post reports. This means a lot of airline employees--and presumably, police and security and FBI--are spending a lot of time tracking down nuisance threats as well, according to the Post.

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