Updated at 12:10 p.m. ETA man in his late teens has been arrested in Israel as the "primary suspect" behind a string of phoned-in bomb threats to Jewish community centers across the U.S. and elsewhere.The arrest was the result of an investigation by Israeli police and the FBI, a police spokesman says.The suspect is Jewish and holds both Israeli and U.S. citizenship, according to multiple news outlets citing a police spokesman. His age has been variously reported as 18 or 19.Israeli police say he was using masking technology to disguise the fact that he was making threatening calls to Jewish centers in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.Authorities have not identified a motive.U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the arrest "is the culmination of a large-scale investigation spanning multiple continents for hate crimes against Jewish communities across our country."As NPR has reported, multiple waves of bomb threats targeted Jewish community centers across America over the past three months. Each wave consisted of threats made by telephone, with multiple states and centers targeted at once. Day care centers were evacuated, and no actual bombs were ever located.The Anti-Defamation League says there have been more than 160 bomb threats at 120 institutions in the U.S. and Canada.A former journalist in St. Louis accused of making at least eight of the threats, allegedly as part of a cyberstalking campaign against an ex-girlfriend, was arrested March 3. NBC reports suggested that the St. Louis man was believed to have made "copycat" threats and was not suspected of carrying out the broader wave of threats.The American-Israeli suspect, in contrast, is being identified as the "primary" suspect.The Associated Press has more on the arrest:
Israel Arrests Man Suspected In Wave Of Bomb Threats Against Jewish Centers
