-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.leitl.org 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 22:32:31 -0500 From: shivers@cc.gatech.edu To: silent-tristero@world.std.com Subject: Shoe bomb At 1:02 am -0800 12/26/01, Talley, Brooks wrote:
This guy, for example, tried to light plastic explosives with a fuse (10% success rate at most), using a smelly match rather than a lighter, and did so while sitting in his seat rather than in a lavatory. Was he asking to be caught, or just incredibly stupid?
He was seated close to the fuel tank. The explosive is essentially just a primer for the fuel. The following article is pretty unsettling, in that it makes the case that - the technique is carefully thought out, and - there will be more of these attacks, and - there aren't good ways to stop them. -Olin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/06/MN222117.DTL Shoe-bomb flight -- a trial run? U.S., British officials fear similar attacks in the works Simon Reeve, Special to The Chronicle Sunday, January 6, 2002 London -- As investigators gather evidence about possible links between alleged airline shoe-bomber Richard Reid and the al Qaeda terrorist organization, intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic are floating a disturbing theory: that Reid's bombing attempt may have been a "trial run" for future, simultaneous attacks against passenger jets to be carried out by supporters of Osama bin Laden. U.S. and British intelligence officials believe that the British citizen on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22 was a "foot soldier" sent to check the destructive power of shoe bombs against civilian targets. One senior British intelligence official said there are indications that "more than a few, but less than a dozen" individuals may be preparing similar attacks in the near future. These officials cite similarities with a weapon developed by Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who plotted a series of simultaneous attacks on U.S. airliners in the mid-1990s. "There is a definite pattern here with Yousef's past attacks that we would be foolish to ignore," said one highly placed intelligence official. "They have tried this before, and they are trying it again." During the flight, Reid allegedly tried to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes with a lighted match. Crew and passengers averted a disaster by jumping on the 28-year-old London-born suspect. "MOTHER OF SATAN" BOMBS Preliminary studies by the FBI indicate Reid's black suede basketball shoes contained between 8 and 10 ounces of the explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP -- called "The Mother of Satan" by Palestinian militants, because its inherent instability makes it dangerous to both the victims and bomb maker. The TATP in Reid's shoes was "blended" with an explosive called PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which can be ignited with a normal cigarette lighter. PETN is a key ingredient of Semtex, the Czech-made military explosive used to down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. "These bombs are sophisticated devices," said the British intelligence official. "They would have been difficult and dangerous to produce. Reid could not have done this himself -- he would have trouble tying his own shoelaces. It seems we may have an expert bomb maker on the loose in Europe." LINKS TO 20TH HIJACKER Among the links being pursued by investigators are telephone conversations, known to British intelligence, between Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so- called "20th hijacker" who was indicted on conspiracy charges in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, and reports that the two worshiped at the same mosque in London. Moussaoui's attorney entered a plea of not guilty for his client in Virginia last week. Investigators are also probing the origins of the money used by Reid, who has no visible means of support, as he traveled to seven different countries last year. Among the cities Reid visited was Amsterdam. The Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (BVD), the Dutch security service, is trying to reconstruct Reid's movements and to establish whether an al Qaeda cell there may be plotting attacks on passenger jets. Reid has told FBI agents that he contacted Dutch arms dealers via the Internet and paid $1,800 for the explosives. But intelligence sources speculate that Reid obtained them from an al Qaeda explosives expert in Amsterdam, who adapted the shoes in preparation for Reid's attack. FBI agents and British anti-terrorist officials, meanwhile, have concluded that the shoe-bomb plot originated with the ideas of Yousef, an early al Qaeda operative who suggested flying passenger jets into buildings. 'PROJECT BOJINKA' SIMILARITIES After instigating the 1993 WTC bombing, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000, the British-educated extremist was on the run from the FBI for nearly two years before being captured. He is currently serving a life sentence plus 240 years. While on the lam in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Far East, Yousef trained other bin Laden terrorists in the use of explosives and told them of a plan he code-named "Project Bojinka" -- "bojinka" means "explosion" in Serbo-Croat -- which used a form of shoe bomb. Designed as a terrorist "spectacular" that would instantly kill thousands of people and eclipse every other terrorist atrocity in history, Yousef planned to blow up 11 U.S. passenger jets scheduled to fly simultaneously over the Far East in January 1995 by using tiny, undetectable bombs. Yousef produced a stable, liquid form of nitroglycerine from an array of chemicals, including sulfuric acid and nitrobenzene, and fashioned them into devices undetectable by airport security devices, including X-ray machines. He converted a Casio digital watch into a timing switch, hid the liquid nitroglycerine in a contact lens case, with cotton wool as a stabilizer, and then used two 9-volt batteries to power light-bulb filaments to spark an explosion. Yousef hid the bomb components in the heels of his shoes, knowing most airport security systems do not scan the soles of feet. "The parallels are really chilling," said a senior FBI official, referring to the Reid case. The official added that security devices to detect explosives on passengers are still in the development stage. Another similarity noted by investigators was the placement of the shoe bomb components. Having obtained Boeing blueprints, Yousef calculated the most devastating place to detonate his bombs was in a seat above the center fuel tank, adjacent to the wing. The bomb alone would not destroy the plane, but it would detonate the fuel, ripping the jet apart. Reid, perhaps following Yousef's example, chose a window seat close to the Boeing 767-300's fuel tank. PHILIPPINES AIRLINE EXPLOSION The "Bojinka" plot was aborted after chemicals Yousef was mixing in a Manila kitchen caught fire and he had to flee to Pakistan, leaving behind details of the plan for police to discover. But Yousef did stage his own trial run. In December 1994, he assembled a bomb on a Philippines Airline flight, then left it under a seat before deplaning the Boeing 747. The resulting explosion on the next leg of the flight killed a Japanese passenger, injured five others and forced the pilot to make an emergency landing in Okinawa. Yousef would have needed only to increase slightly the size of the bomb to ensure the plane's destruction. Some investigators are so concerned about how far the parallels between Reid and Yousef go that they have suggested "a more rigorous" interrogation of Reid, designed to elicit any information he has about a possible second "Bojinka" plot. "There is significant concern about this guy," said the FBI official. "Does the failure of his mission mean his cell will now go on the run? Possibly. But in the past these groups have been very focused and do not easily turn from their target." Simon Reeve, a London-based investigative journalist and contributor to The Chronicle, is the author of "The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism."
The following article is pretty unsettling, in that it makes the case that - the technique is carefully thought out, and - there will be more of these attacks, and - there aren't good ways to stop them.
Sleeping gas. Once the plane starts, fill the airplane with something that causes sleep. (Make sure the pilots are isolated, of course). Lots of savings - you don't need stewardesses, you don't need food or drinks... Mark
http://www.idaho-post.org/Special_Notices/homemade_explosive.htm implies that triacetone triperoxide can be home-made, and has intriguing reference to "ping pong balls dissolved in acetone". Interestingly, despite scare stories, a simple google search doesn't turn up details on how to make the stuff (neither does the Science Citation Index, which might have been a better bet, though I imagine anyone with access to a University library could get the information) It also says that police in Quebec have orders to "withdraw immediately" if hydrogen peroxide, acetone and sulphuric acid are found in a building, because it is used as a booby trap by illegal hemp growers. Obvious cross-link to the other thread abut physical security here. IT seems TATP is the chemical of choice for the sort of thing some posters were thinking about. And google has just told me that the husband of a colleague of mine has published a paper on PETN - thousands of tons of which are apparently manufactured every year and used in industry and medicine (it is a vasodilator and cardioactive drug). So it might not be too difficult to find that for sale. So the argument that he wasn't acting alone boils down to "we think he was too stupid to think it up" or else "we want you to think there are lots of conspiracies so you give us lots of money to investigate them". http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_1631000/1631755.stm is the BBC report of an appeal by two Palestinians who are in jail in London for (amongst other things) making bombs out of TATP in London in 1994, there is a website about the court case at: http://www.freesaj.org.uk/Appeal01_judgement.htm Of course maybe the stuff really is hard to make & the Canadian police are dealing with unusually sophisticated drug dealers and hemp growers. I think Reid lived in South London, as do I. (he attended Brixton mosque for a while). Of course there are no drug dealers or hemp growers in South London. Really. Honestly. And the shop in my neighbourhood that sells hydroponic kits is frequented only by little old ladies with serious orchid collections. Ken Eugene Leitl wrote: [...]
The following article is pretty unsettling, in that it makes the case that - the technique is carefully thought out, and - there will be more of these attacks, and - there aren't good ways to stop them.
-Olin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/06/MN222117.DTL Shoe-bomb flight -- a trial run? U.S., British officials fear similar attacks in the works Simon Reeve, Special to The Chronicle
[...]
"These bombs are sophisticated devices," said the British intelligence official. "They would have been difficult and dangerous to produce. Reid could not have done this himself -- he would have trouble tying his own shoelaces. It seems we may have an expert bomb maker on the loose in Europe."
On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Ken Brown wrote:
that triacetone triperoxide can be home-made, and has intriguing
HMDT is another "alternative". Really fun to work with: Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics Subject: Re: HMDT Date: 10 Mar 92 04:53:20 GMT Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland. : : Well, I put a small piece of HMTD into a brick, and hitted it with a hammer, and it didn't detonate. I also tried a 'spark-test' from a lighter, and didn't managed to detonate HMTD. ( Indeed in ntp, and in normal condition, HMTD wont detonate If you light it, It'll burn like cellulose nitrate - with a yellow flame. Well, I was more than Happy to see, That I'd found A PERFECT Primary-explosive to detonate high-explosives. Well At the July of 1989 It happened, I was damping HMTD into a .22 LR copper cartridge, with a standart match, you see holding that cartridge in my left hand ,when it suddendly detonated, A HUGE explosion, and I found that for some reason, my hand was bleeding abt 1/2 liter of blood per min ( 1/9 gallon per min ) , and I could see my bone 'shining' through scraped human tissue. Epiloque. Never NEVER load B-caps in your hand, Always use special tamping device when loading Blasting caps - any other use for HMTD is silly - Believe me, I had hitted HMTD with a Hammer, It didn't detonate, and now, when I try to load that stuff from same batch into a copper container, It detonates, even I press with maybe 1/2 kg ( = 1 pound ) force it. Maybe the batch was impure, but believe me, It really explode without no reason. I must say that HMTD is a good explosive, but It's truly unpredictable. I'm sure that there are many others in this newsgroup who can tell the same thing - months of hard handling, and then, a explosion by a minumum force. : :
reference to "ping pong balls dissolved in acetone". Interestingly,
They're made (or used to be made until very recently) from celluloid, nitrocellulose of low degree of nitration plasticized with camphor. It is soluble in acetone, but diethylether/ethanol is a better solvent. I don't see this being anything else than binder, stabilizer or desensibilizer for the organic peroxides/PETN.
despite scare stories, a simple google search doesn't turn up details on how to make the stuff (neither does the Science Citation Index, which might have been a better bet, though I imagine anyone with access to a University library could get the information)
A simple Google search should pull up dozens of links on how to make it. Don't. If you don't know how to make it, it means you can't handle it safely. Quantities of organic peroxides in novice's hands will quickly make them missing digits, or Worse. Organic peroxides are much too instable to be safely worked with, period.
And google has just told me that the husband of a colleague of mine has published a paper on PETN - thousands of tons of which are apparently manufactured every year and used in industry and medicine (it is a vasodilator and cardioactive drug). So it might not be too difficult to find that for sale.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sci/chem-faq/part3/section-2.html See: 13.8 What is the chemical structure of common explosives? -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.leitl.org 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3
It will work - provided that you provide a trained anesthetist for every four or so passengers. There's no such thing as a safe, stable anesthetic. Marc de Piolenc Marcel Popescu wrote:
The following article is pretty unsettling, in that it makes the case that - the technique is carefully thought out, and - there will be more of these attacks, and - there aren't good ways to stop them.
Sleeping gas. Once the plane starts, fill the airplane with something that causes sleep. (Make sure the pilots are isolated, of course). Lots of savings - you don't need stewardesses, you don't need food or drinks...
Mark
-- Remember September 11, 2001 but don't forget July 4, 1776 Rather than make war on the American people and their liberties, ...Congress should be looking for ways to empower them to protect themselves when warranted. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin
participants (4)
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Eugene Leitl
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F. Marc de Piolenc
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Ken Brown
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Marcel Popescu