Saturday, December 26, 2009

Nigerian student at University College London burns his leg!

Oh dear, the stakes in the development of Improvised Explosive Devices has taken another step forward. As usual with al-Qaeda, it is three steps forward and one step back. al-Qaeda will always keep plugging away at terrorist attacks until they become successful. al-Qaeda has a history of finding new and rather clever ways to attack the West.

23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab attempted to ignite an explosive device strapped to his leg as a Northwest Airlines flight carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew came in to land in Detroit on Friday. He suffered second degree burns before being overpowered by other passengers including one who jumped on him and was also burned. According to US intelligence officials, the explosive device was a mixture of powder and liquid. Witnesses described seeing the suspect using a syringe to inject one substance into another before flames erupted; it raised the prospect that terrorists have discovered a form of explosives that cannot be detected by current airport screening. Witnesses said that they saw the suspect - who was in seat 19A - emerge from the toilet with a pillow held over his stomach and a syringe in his hand.
He then injected the syringe into something held in his stomach area, possibly a powdery substance, and smoke and flames quickly followed. "It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase," said passenger Peter Smith. “First there was a pop, and then there was smoke."

The suspect later told authorities that he had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder and cause an explosion.

...So there you have it, another step forward by al-Qaeda with their new pick and mix IED recipe that is very hard to detect and prevent. I fear that a plane will soon go down, probably over American soil.
Comments:
Hi Steve

With my Geeks head on and without doing any research I would suggest that the powder was some form of oxidising agent, I think that Sodium Chlorate might work, and the liquid was the fuel, a small quanity of lighter fliud would be perfect. An even more sinster source of fuel could be alcohol which the airline freely hands out. Perhaps not an expolsive but an effective incendiary

All basic A-level Chemistry, and used to be O-level stuff before dumbing down and therefore also immpossible to completely eliminate.

Happy Christmas

John
 
The high explosive Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab used was identified by the FBI as Pentaerythritol, better known as PETN – a major component of Semtex. He injected a detonating liquid into the PETN with a syringe, but the bomb failed to explode.

Happy Ashura ,

Multicultural Stephen.
 
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