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July 22, 2005
'Old' Acetone Peroxide Used In London Blasts? Are there such a thing as 'Keystone' terrorists?
Topics: TerrorismIn Mike's post at Jawa Report today, "Oozing Rucksacks," we find that witnesses to the London blasts "spoke of seeing a lard-like substance oozing from one of the would-be bombers' backpacks after it failed to go off, suggesting the presence of an explosive mixture such as acetone peroxide which was used on July 7, the experts said."
As noted in the Jawa Report post, and previously at Hyscience, Acetone Peroxide is made from household items such as sulphuric acid (often - drain cleaner), hydrogen peroxide and acetone, and does indeed deteriorate over time and becomes harmless if it passes its "use-by" date. In my
Also, as suggested by the UC London chemist refered to in JR's post, if the 7/7 explosives were all made and packed at the same time (and under the same conditions), you might expect a substantial amount of the explosive to have disappeared by this week AND we can assume that the explosive was made as far back as a week BEFORE 7/7. It also implies that they didn't have available or didn't know about a second chemical (details withheld) that could have been blended with it to give it a little more shelf life (which also implies, if used, they would have known about the shelf life).
If they either didn't have this second chemical available or they didn't even know about it, it says something about their degree of sophistication and/or their connections to "pros" since this second chemical is known to al-Qaeda, and often used by them.
In my post yesterday entitled, "Acetone Peroxide - the explosive used in the London blasts," I wrote that MY PERSONAL GUESS ON WHY THE EXPLOSIVES DIDN'T GO OFF was that "the bomb-maker was an idiot and got the mixture wrong! It's as simple as that." However, inserting the time factor into the equation, makes a big difference, and brings up a whole host of different questions. Assuming that the "terrorist cell" was linked to al-Qaeda, one would think that the time factor wasn't even a question since al-Qaeda is supposedly sophisticated enough to know about TATPs instability.
If the bomb-maker didn't know about the shelf life issue, then it implies that he either didn't know about the chemical necessary to stabilize it(for slightly longer), or he didn't have it available for his use. Or, the whole cell could have been dumb enough or in-experienced enough to not know that a few weeks, at most, under the best conditions, was all they had for the compound to be an effective explosive.
In any case, the bomb-maker did get the mixture wrong (he failed to use ALL NECESSARY chemicals for a decent shelf life, the second team of bombers in yesterday's attacks must have used the original batch of compound (or as originally thought, they simply screwed-up a new mixture), and no stabilizing compound was used either because of lack of resources or knowledge.
If the bombers were handled by a well-conected terrorist-mentor, which one would expect of an al-Qaeda operation, why no access to or knowledge of - the stabilizer(a component used in Semtex, details not provided here), and why no knowledge of the material being time-sensitive?
Answer: They're either Keystone terrorists, or the terror cell responsible for yesterday's bombings bring new meaning to the term loose-connection(to al-Qaeda).
Posted by Hyscience at July 22, 2005 8:42 AM
These are the sort-of-but-not-quite-there jihadis I like to call Islamotards.
Posted by: Eric at July 22, 2005 10:25 AM
Articles Related to Terrorism:
- 'Old' Acetone Peroxide Used In London Blasts? Are there such a thing as 'Keystone' terrorists? - Jul 22, 2005
