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Terror on the aeroplane - "highly improbable C'ptn"

concerned individual | 18.08.2006 12:36 | Education | Terror War | World

An excerpt from an article by Thomas C Greene in Washington availbalbe at:

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/print.html

I thought it worth a note here.

Better killing through chemistry
Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.

First, you've got to get adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is hard to come by, so a large quantity of the three per cent solution sold in pharmacies might have to be concentrated by boiling off the water. Only this is risky, and can lead to mission failure by means of burning down your makeshift lab before a single infidel has been harmed.

But let's assume that you can obtain it in the required concentration, or cook it from a dilute solution without ruining your operation. Fine. The remaining ingredients, acetone and sulfuric acid, are far easier to obtain, and we can assume that you've got them on hand.

Now for the fun part. Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked "perishable foods"), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them.

It's best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate - especially if you have those cold gel-packs handy to supplement the ice, and the Styrofoam chiller handy for insulation - to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie.

Easy does it
Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

The genius of this scheme is that TATP is relatively easy to detonate. But you must make enough of it to crash the plane, and you must make it with care to assure potency. One needs quality stuff to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," as Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson put it. While it's true that a slapdash concoction will explode, it's unlikely to do more than blow out a few windows. At best, an infidel or two might be killed by the blast, and one or two others by flying debris as the cabin suddenly depressurizes, but that's about all you're likely to manage under the most favorable conditions possible.

We believe this because a peer-reviewed 2004 study ( http://www.technion.ac.il/~keinanj/pub/122.pdf) in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) entitled "Decomposition of Triacetone Triperoxide is an Entropic Explosion" tells us that the explosive force of TATP comes from the sudden decomposition of a solid into gasses. There's no rapid oxidizing of fuel, as there is with many other explosives: rather, the substance changes state suddenly through an entropic process, and quickly releases a respectable amount of energy when it does. (Thus the lack of ingredients typically associated with explosives makes TATP, a white crystalline powder resembling sugar, difficult to detect with conventional bomb sniffing gear.)


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Mrs. Satan
By now you'll be asking why these jihadist wannabes didn't conspire simply to bring TATP onto planes, colored with a bit of vegetable dye, and disguised as, say, a powdered fruit-flavored drink. The reason is that they would be afraid of failing: TATP is notoriously sensitive and unstable. Mainstream journalists like to tell us that terrorists like to call it "the mother of Satan." (Whether this reputation is deserved, or is a consequence of homebrewing by unqualified hacks, remains open to debate.)

It's been claimed that the 7/7 bombers used it, but this has not been positively confirmed. Some sources claim that they used C-4, and others that they used RDX. Nevertheless, the belief that they used TATP has stuck with the media, although going about in a crowded city at rush hour with an unstable homebrew explosive in a backpack is not the brightest of all possible moves. It's surprising that none of the attackers enjoyed an unscheduled launch into Paradise.

So, assuming that the homebrew variety of TATP is highly sensitive and unstable - or at least that our inept jihadists would believe that - to avoid getting blown up in the taxi on the way to the airport, one might, if one were educated in terror tactics primarily by hollywood movies, prefer simply to dump the precursors into an airplane toilet bowl and let the mother of Satan work her magic. Indeed, the mixture will heat rapidly as TATP begins to form, and it will soon explode. But this won't happen with much force, because little TATP will have formed by the time the explosion occurs.

We asked University of Rhode Island Chemistry Professor Jimmie C. Oxley, who has actual, practical experience with TATP, if this is a reasonable assumption, and she tolds us that merely dumping the precursors together would create "a violent reaction," but not a detonation.

To release the energy needed to bring down a plane (far more difficult to do than many imagine,

concerned individual


Comments

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UK-US Airplane Terror Charade: Turning the Screws on Democratic Rights

18.08.2006 21:42

This is a very good 1 hour radio shown on the plane terror threat.


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Propaganda paradise

19.08.2006 03:03

Baggage handlers 'feared for jobs' during bomb threat

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) says six airport baggage handlers in Sydney feared they would be sacked if they did not comply with a request to remove a suspected bomb from a plane.

==============================

UK maintains tough security despite airport chaos

The British Government says tough new security measures will remain in place at airports for the time being, despite growing anger from some airlines.

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Bomb threat causes false alarm on British plane

A bomb threat scrawled on an air sickness bag has caused a British passenger plane from London to Egypt to be diverted to southern Italy.

===============================

UK police find 'martyr videos' on laptops

It is reported that British police have found "martyrdom" video tapes apparently recorded by some of the suspects being held over an alleged plot to blow up airliners flying to the United States?

================================



Parrot Press


Wrong questions?

19.08.2006 12:27

Now go back and ask Professor Oxley a few different questions that refer to the more general matter of LIQUID explosives rather than the not so easy to make TATP. After all, unless you were directly involved you don't know that THIS chemical was intended. There are plenty of much easier possibilities.

1) Unary liquid explosives? For example, Pictric Acid might have passed inspeciton in a "Listerine" bottle (similar color). This stuff is pretty stable if kept away from contact with metals (Pictric salts are quite unstable). OK, it would take a fairly powerful detonator. How about Nitroglycerine in a bottle supposedly containing Glycerine? If a suitable lid were tightened on with temperature difference probably sealable beyond the ability of dogs to sniff (could test with one of the substances we humans can smell better than dogs can). That wouldn't require a powerful detonator. The question to ask the professor here woudl be whether there was anything that could be added to Pictric Acid to relatively quickly make it more sensitive to detonation.

2) Easy binaries? For example, pure Hydrogen Peroxide would be needed to make TATP. But this oxidizer simply mixed with any flammable liquid in the right proportions will detonate (just like Ammonium Nitrate and fuele oil does). Not necessarily with a small detonator so ask the professor whether there are any "fuel side" liquids for which a small detonator would work.

Mike Novack
mail e-mail: stepbystpefarm mtdata.com


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