Christians Under Attack

suggested that liquid explosives would be carried on board planes. Once on board, the suicide attackers would then combine ingredients with detonators, which were to be disguised in simple electronic devices, such as mobile phones, MP3 players, etc.

The plot has echoes of one called Operation Bojinka, which had been devised by Ramzi Yousef, the man who drove explosives into the World Trade Center on February 26,1993. The plot was found in a booklet, bearing his fingerprints in an apartment in Manila in the Philippines in January 1995. Apparently in the month previously, Ramzi Yousef had done a trial run, boarding a two-stage flight where he assembled the necessary components and left them under a seat. He disembarked when the plane landed, and other passengers got on for the second leg of the journey. The bomb went off, killing a Japanese businessman and injuring 10 others. Ramzi Yousef (by then a member of Al Qaeda) had intended to have 11 planes attacked in this way.

Disturbing news now comes from Jamestown.org, in which the recipes for manufacturing such liquid explosives are being carried on jihadist websites.

Other explosives manuals can be found on sites such as kataebaqsa, a Palestinian jihadist site, organ of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, in Arabic. The data on this site is amassed in a file called "The Preparation Encyclopedia—All the Mujahid Needs."

Jamestown lists the various explosive recipes available on this site, and acknowledges that most of the components are highly volatile and dangerous.

The article also states that the recipe for the substance which was used by Richard Reid in his failed "shoe-bomb", triacetone triperoxide, was available on the web forum http://www.bramjnet.com. Fortunately, since the article was released by Jamestown.org, the site has been suspended by its server. This site also gave details on how to make detonators from this substance. TATP was used by the 7/7 bombers last year, manufactured in a bath in a council housing block in Alexandra Grove, Leeds, from substances available on any high street.

As they made the explosive, the noxious fumes were so strong that the bombers had to use facemasks and shower caps, while the windows were open. Their hair had begun to bleach, and the fumes caused the leaves on trees outside the bathroom window to shrivel and die.

An article from Janes security describes how the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has studied how it causes its reaction. Every molecule of TATP forms four molecules of gas, ozone and acetone, and these do not react with each other. As all of the TATP becomes gas, it creates extreme pressure, and blasts outward at a rate of 5250 meters per second.

As the gases in TATP do react with each other, there is no flame, which led one 7/7 victim, Katie Benton from Tennessee, to say: "There was no fireball - it was just so not Hollywood. They really have no idea what a bomb is like..."

The TATP as used by the 7/7 bombers was in a solid crystalline state. But it was in a liquid state while being prepared.

The liquid explosive could have been a type of nitroglycerine, stabilised with a type of cotton. We wrote on November 24 of the case of an Algerian, Abbas Boutrab, who was found guilty in a Belfast court of possessing information "for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism." He had downloaded information for a small bomb from the internet. Whether this was in a liquid or solid state is not specified.

However, as we wrote then: An FBI explosives expert, Donald Sachtleben gave evidence for the prosecution during the trial. He said he had built and detonated three bombs following the method on Boutrab's disks. The mixture could have been disguised in a bottle of baby powder, and could easily be detonated using the battery from a CD player.

He claimed "a person of average intelligence and average mechanical skills" could create the bomb, which "would be likely to cause significant damage to the aircraft and cause injury or death." In a pressurised cabin at high altitude, it would "more than likely...cause catastrophic failure".

The website of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is still functional and online.

On November 6 last year, the Sunday Times reported that another Islamist web forum, called Al Firdaws or Paradise contained detailed instructions for making bombs. The site had posted on October 6 a manual which detailed in 80 pages how to make bomb materials in kitchens. Extravagantly, the manual also included a description of how to make a nuclear device from enriched uranium, which would be impossible to achieve for a layman. The website Al Firdaws is still online.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 17, 2006 12:52 AM