Peroxide Bombs, Wiretapping And Terrorism
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, The WorldFrom the looks of it, the authorities in the UK were well on top of this situation beforehand and we simply gave them some extra intel so they felt confident about arresting the suspects.
More from Time:
Britain’s MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters’ planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group’s communications. Most of the suspects are second or third generation British citizens of Pakistani descent whose families hailed from war-torn Kashmir. U.S. officials believe the 29 members were divided into multiple cells and planned to break into small groups to board the nine planes.
And a little on the explosives, which seem to be a favorite among suicide bombers, including the ones on the London subway system:
FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials quickly alerted law enforcement agencies around the country to the peroxide-based liquid explosives the London plotters planned to bring aboard the American-bound planes. An alert the FBI and DHS sent out Thursday to state and local law enforcement agencies â€â€? which is classified “For Official Use Only” and was obtained by TIME â€â€? warns them that the peroxide-based explosives could also be employed in future attacks here.[...]
The FBI-DHS report next warns law enforcement agencies about the two peroxide-based liquid explosive that could be used in a future attack against the U.S.–triacetone triperoxide (TATP) or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD). The report describes how a terrorist would assemble bombs with these chemicals. Peroxide-based liquid explosives “are sensitive to heat, shock, and friction, can be initiated simply with fire or electrical charge, and can also be used to produce improvised detonators,” the report states. “For example, TATP or HMTD may be placed in a tube or syringe body in contact with a bare bulb filament, such as that obtained from inside a Christmas tree light bulb, to produce an explosion.” The report doesn’t mention anything about a terrorist assembling such a bomb on a plane, but it does warn that manufacturing such a device can be dangerous for the bombmaker. “Because of the instability of these substances,” the report notes, “spontaneous detonation can occur during the production process.”
Over the past ten years peroxide-based explosives have popped up in a number of terror operations, according to FBI-DHS report. “Terrorist have used peroxide-based explosive both as a main charge (weighing in excess of 20 pounds) and improvised detonators,” the joint assessment states. “TATP was popularized as a main charge explosive in suicide bombs used by Palestinian terrorist groups.”
More as it becomes available.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 10th, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
I’m really grateful these attacks were thwarted. Now all the Brits have to do is prosecute these people, get intel from them, study’em, and lock them up forever. I hope the Brits have a strong case against these guys.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:53 am
War on Terror/2
Su Hot Air, gli ultimi dettagli che stanno emergendo sul piano terroristico sventato dai servizi segreti britannici. Mentre la sinistra americana (e i francesi) non sono terrorizzati dalla Jihad, ma dal fatto che Bush (e i repubblicani) potrebbero cr…
August 11th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Maybe the law enforcement approach of Kerry works?
And I heard that they actually used the FISA court and got warrants, so that evidence gathered could be used in the legal case against the terrorists.
Unless you really think we should invade the UK so ‘we can fight them over there instead of over here’?
Who woulda thunk?
August 11th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Exhaustive documentatio that criminal elements in control of major western governments have carried out terror attacks and deliberately manufactured fake alerts for political purposes.
In 2002, then White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told the Washington Times that terror alerts were issued “as a result of all the controversy that took place last week,” referring to political heat bestowed on President Bush when 9/11 prior knowledge evidence first surfaced.
From this point onwards smoking guns of government complicity in 9/11 became intrinsically linked with fake terror alerts.
In January of 2003 FBI and CIA whistleblowers told Capitol Hill Blue that the White House was scripting phony terror alerts to maintain hysteria, upkeep President Bush’s approval ratings and milk extra defense funding. The report that five Pakistani men had entered the States via Canada and were planning on carrying out a dirty bomb or biological attack was completely conjured up by the Bush administration’s black propaganda office. New York Harbor was shut down to visibly pump up the fear. One of the named suspects, Mohammed Asghar (pictured left), was tracked down to Pakistan by the Associated Press. He was a fat guy running a jewellers shop and had never even been to America.
August 17th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Fake terror alerts play into this neo-McCarthyism strategy of the Bush camp. I pay more attention to what color nail polish my girlfriend wears on her toes than ANY terror alert color from “The boy who cried wolf”. Mostly because if I notice a change in nail polish color my girlfriend tells me I’m sweet. If I notice a change in terror alert threat level colors I’ve got one thumb in my mouth; one thumb in my butt; and waiting for the Bush camp to tell me to switch. I hate these fear tactics being played on Americians who think POTUS is actually looking out for them. I guess you just need to be “numb to the dumb”.