2006 Liquid Terror Plot - alleged bombs on UK-US planes

[physicist]

[dean_saor]

[Poseidon]

[Mark Gobell]

Thanks Poseidon

I am a chemistry ignoramus.

Yet I found facts and recipes today about TATP that anyone who can read and understand would have to conclude that this story, on the "liquid bomb" level alone, is just garbage.

TATP produces an entropic reaction.

Entropic = no heat = no burns.

Your point about the Litani river is well taken. I have posted about this before. Israel needs water.

[utopiated]

Newsnight [UK] currently featuring a whole section on 'scepticism' re current events.

This is a first.

[Snowygrouch]

My uncle and I both watched the story as it broke; looked at eachother laughed and said in unison

"What a load of PISH!"

The givaway is that WE KNOW about the story at all.

We know they were tracking them for months so why not arrest the lot as soon as they had enough Intel to put em away and leave it at that?

But NOOOooooooo. Leave it until the night before the day of the attack then phone up all the airports and newspapers saying:

"Oh look you were all nearly killed!"
"Mass murder!!"

Oh and they hid explosives in a park down the road, HAR HAR HAR.

Ooooh but they are so clever and scary and used hi tech LIQUID explosives..... Nitroglycerin is clear liquid and was one of the first explosives ever invented, HAR HAR HAR

Terrorists try to disrupt and kill, the government settled for 50% terrorism this time and just intentionally and needlessly caused internatioal chaos.

Like a previous poster said

Blair we dont fall for this nonsense anymore!

Calum

[gordon]

Lucky they had all them plastic bags handy.

Gordon.

[Me]

Tucker Carlson had a chemist on tonight talking about this so-called foiled plot. Tucker said, what if it were nitroglycerin in a contact lens case? The chemist said that only an experienced chemist could mix together such a volatile concoction because these types of elements self-react very easily in the creation process. He said that such a small amount would maybe blow off an arm or at worst kill a single person but would never be enough to actually bring down a plane. Tucker feeling the need to create more of a scare hypothesized that it were instead a larger container of lens cleaning solution filled with explosive. Would that be enough to blow a hole in the fuselage of a plane he asked. The chemist said that yes, it potentially could blow a hole in the side but whether or not such an amount could bring down a plane depended on many different variables and factors. In other words, it would require a certain amount of luck to bring down the plane. He then concluded that if any terrorists were really planning to take down a plane in the manner that has been purported, they would’ve used a lot more than what Carlson was proposing. So we’re left to believe that these terrorists were planning on being able to smuggle large Clorox containers filled with explosive liquids enough to cause the desired damage which is highly unlikely. We were told that this plot was going to be worse than 9/11 and these planes were going to be blown right out of the sky over the Atlantic. Why after 9/11, would they be destroying these planes over the ocean instead over a major city? We’re told that Al Qaeda has a habit of making each attack progressively more extreme than the previous one. It would seem to me that having the planes disappear into the ocean would be convenient for hiding the evidence.

[Me]

Alex Jones on "exploding liquids".

http://prisonplanet.tv/audio/110806terror.mp3

[Me]

Oh gee, it must be Galloway's fault....

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006370177,00.html

[spiv]

Ha-ha 'Me', if this was printed in the Sun then "it must be true" (I think not!!)

I see that, as many of us have been predicting, the Authorities are today gradually releasing some of the arrestees, one so far and one imminent at present. Wonder if it is one whose name has been splashed around by the Bank of England and whose assets are frozen. The state has been gradually creating these powers for itself under "anti-terror" legislation for some time now. The well founded but now quickly disappearing fundamental right of being 'innocent until proved guilty' is the very reason why the state's current 'abuse' of the system mean that its powers must either be reigned in or else kept in check by an overseeing body, that of the citizens of this country.

It used to be that people were arrested far away from the media, now it seems that every reporter and cameraman in the country is alerted prior to these arrests.

[Snowygrouch]

"It used to be that people were arrested far away from the media, now it seems that every reporter and cameraman in the country is alerted prior to these arrests"

You`ve hit the blasted nail square on the head there SPIV

Why tell us AT ALL!

[Poseidon]

Evidence found by the police in the suspects' homes was said to be "interesting". However, this outlet...

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060810/10london.htm

states what it was:

[Snowygrouch]

Well to be honest Baked beans are fairly dangerous in the hands of a novice.

I certainly experience many explosive detonations in the hours following an ill advised over consumption of beans.........

these cunning devious bean infested characters were clearly planning to over pressurise the cabins by consuming vast quantities of beans the night before and by flatulating destroying the airliners.

Its undoubtedly the most devious plan since General Custer thought he`d `take the chaps out` for a weekend camping expedition.

[utopiated]

[Sinclair]

Just found this at RI board.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/

Source: U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests
British wanted to continue surveillance on terror suspects, official says
NBC VIDEO


• Disagreement over terror arrests
Aug. 12: U.S. and British authorities disagreed on when to break up an alleged plot to blow up airliners bound for the United States, officials say. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
Nightly News



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Full coverage: Airline terror plot
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By Aram Roston, Lisa Myers, and the NBC News Investigative Unit
NBC News
Updated: 8:13 p.m. ET Aug. 12, 2006
LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

[Banish]

Im a cunning terrorist.

Im the son of a Tory Councillor.

I change my good old English name for one with a more Islamic flavour, just to make sure I dont get stoppped at the airport when I go to blow an airplane up with a tube of toothpaste.

Im a cunning terrorist.

[Rory Winter]

Terrorism scare a cynical charade?
From the Winnipeg Free Press
Saturday, August 12, 2006 Page A15
http://booksinternationale.pbwiki.com/

"I used to know when I was being deeply cynical and when I wasn't," said a friend who just made it into London before they closed Heathrow airport for the terrorist scare. "Now, I don't."

Back in February 2003, when Prime Minister Tony Blair was trying to persuade a reluctant Britain that invading Iraq alongside the United States was a really neat idea, tanks suddenly appeared on the perimeter road around Heathrow to guard against an impending terrorist attack. It wasn't clear what they were supposed to do -- crush the terrorists under their treads? -- and no actual terrorists ever showed up, but it helped to shape public opinion. So how different is it this time?

Hundreds of flights delayed or cancelled. Twenty-four alleged conspirators arrested in East London, Thames Valley towns and Birmingham, many of them described by neighbours as bearded Muslims wearing traditional dress. Shocking revelations that they had a new technique for blowing up to 10 aircraft on the heavily travelled London-U.S. routes out of the sky simultaneously by smuggling explosive liquids aboard. All cabin baggage banned on flights out of Britain. And in a classic case of panic envy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declares a red alert in the United States, too.

That should scare the public into supporting a war on terror a bit longer, even if the real wars are about something else, and are going seriously wrong: Iraq sliding into civil war, the Taliban coming back in Afghanistan, Israel flattening Lebanon without making any significant dent in Hezbollah's capabilities. Most people will assume that with all that smoke, there must be some fire.

Of course there's some fire. Terrorists of various sorts have been in business for about 40 years, and the current crop of Islamist terrorists are especially dangerous since they are willing to kill themselves along with their victims. But in the United States more people die on the roads every single month than Islamist terrorists have killed since the year 2000, and in Britain it's more people every week. Yet neither country has tried to restrict access to cars.

Maybe it's cynical, but there are strong grounds for suspecting that this is all a charade. If they infiltrated these terrorist cells many months ago and have now arrested most of the members, then why would they institute drastic security measures on flights at this point? And did they really only realize in the last few days that explosives come in liquid form as well?

British Home Secretary John Reid boldly asserted that the main players had been accounted for, and Scotland Yard Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson proudly announced that "we are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and commit mass murder." Well done, lads -- but if you have them all locked up, why are you closing the airports and bringing in all these draconian security measures now? A couple of months ago, when you first uncovered this plot but didn't know all the "main players" I could understand such drastic precautions, but why now?

Maybe it was those explosive liquid chemicals they were planning to smuggle aboard the planes. After all, it's only 160 years since nitroglycerin was invented. It's a mere 11 years since al-Qaida associate Ramzi Yousef plotted to blow up 12 airliners flying across the Pacific at the same time with nitro carried aboard in contact lens solution bottles. Who could have foreseen this? Quick! Bring in new security measures!

They really aren't that stupid. They have been checking liquids that people want to carry aboard flights at airport security checkpoints for years. There would be no need for drastic new security measures even if the alleged British terrorist ring were still on the loose. This is all hype, designed to frighten the British and American publics into supporting the wars of their deeply unpopular governments (and the war of their Israeli ally as well).

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based journalist.

[Rory Winter]

It’s that’s time again – for another ‘terror plot’
by William Bowles • Saturday, 12 August, 2006
http://www.williambowles.info/

“Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world.” – Home secretary, John Reid

It’s amazing really that nobody sees the paradox of Reid calling for the abolition of what’s left of our civil rights in order to preserve them but then there’s nothing logical about the ‘war on terror’, it is itself a contradiction of terms.

As to Reid’s notion of his “fundamental values” well, one assumes these include the wholesale destruction of societies and their peoples and standing by whilst his allies do the same. Not only standing by but urging them on for Christ’s sake!

And also amazing is Reid’s call to destroy our rights even as he accuses those who would, he alleges, destroy them!

Is it really too farfetched to assume that people who can speak with such hypocrisy and whose hands are soaked in the blood of the tens of thousands of innocents would think twice about engineering a plot if they thought it would further their objectives?

Yes, I know, I have no proof merely the record of recent (and not so recent) history to go on and the lapses and contradictions of the state propaganda machine as it prepares us for Der Tag.

The problem for us is that the word conspiracy has been so b****** that now it only applies to cranks and whackos but the fact is, the state itself is a conspiracy, a conspiracy of one class over another. With so much at stake, there is literally nothing they won’t do in order to hold onto power including fabricating evidence in order to launch illegal wars. Don’t’ tell me that the invasion and destruction of Iraq wasn’t the result of an international conspiracy!

Evidence was fabricated on a grand scale, lies told to all and sundry and the lies were delivered by a complicit corporate and state media. It doesn’t need a gang of people in some back room somewhere, plotting and scheming, it’s called government policy and it takes place at the highest levels of government; this is the political class’s role, to preserve the rule of capital at any cost.

And yes, I know it’s hard to accept the fact that the state would go to such lengths to ‘fit up’ people but the record shows that it has happened over and over again and bear in mind that the state has effectively unlimited resources and armies of loyal servants paid and trained to obey orders. This is our reality whether people are prepared to accept it or not.

Apparently, the ‘war on terror’ could last a half century or so we are told but regardless of how long this phony war lasts, it’ll mean living under the boot of the state. It might not wear jackboots but it’ll be every bit as ruthless in suppressing dissent and as time passes, the space for dissent will shrink, and shrink, and shrink … ‘til there’s none left.

I read somewhere that there is a direct, statistical relationship between ‘terror alerts’ and events detrimental to the state, thus it’s safe to assume that the state is involved up to its dirty neck in the latest attempt to scare the pants off everyone.

Cast your mind back if you can, to previous ‘terror’ alerts that came to nought with not even a trial let alone a conviction of attempting to blow anything or anybody up.

The worst the authorities could come up with were ‘thought crimes’, that is, some guys sat around and talked *, at least according to the authorities but think about it, we have governments that lie to us about everything they do, including why they destroy entire countries and exterminate countless thousands of people, either directly or indirectly such as Israel’s war on Lebanon, so why is it so farfetched that these self-same people would not create fictional threats?

The timing of the latest alert is absolutely crucial as it came just as the Western states were under increasing pressure to force Israel to stop its criminal war of extermination and the situation in Iraq is going from bad to disastrous for the occupiers.

The plots that never were

There was the ‘ricin’ poison ‘plot’ ‘cept there was no ricin, never mind a plot though this was the story the MSM spread; see the following stories for the real story on the ‘ricin plot’

‘The Case of Kamel Bourgass – The sound of one hand clapping or a conspiracy of one’, www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0327.html and,

‘Ricin: The plot that never was by Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitacker’, www.williambowles.info/spysrus/ricin_plot.html and,

‘Fake Terror – Ricin Ring That Never Was’ by Duncan Campbell’, www.williambowles.info/spysrus/ricin_plot2.html [1]

Then there was ‘gas attack’ on the London underground, another story that came to nought.

And then there was the army pitching at Heathrow on the ‘intelligence’ that ‘terrorists’ were about take out a jet with a ground-to-air missile. As with all the other ‘terror’ alerts, it was all hot air.

The state’s response was and is, ‘well we foiled it didn’t we’, though ask them for the proof and you’ll get the stock response, ‘sorry, can’t tell, it’s a state secret.’

There seems to be direct correlation between the scale of the disasters of Empire and the nature of the ‘terror alert’ with each disaster accompanied by an even bigger alert.

Thus far, 24 people have been arrested (and one released without charge) and 19 named and charged under various and sundry ‘anti-terrorism’ legislations.

As usual, there are a number of disturbing aspects to this latest hysteria that contradicts the draconian measures the government have taken.

Firstly, it was, according to the government, the worst plot since 9/11, with allegedly, 10 transatlantic flights targeted for destruction, and apparently Blair informed Bush this past weekend yet the ‘critical alert’ wasn’t announced until AFTER the arrests and it didn’t stop Blair flying off on HIS transatlantic flight to the Caribbean for his vacance.

And, according to Pakistani authorities as of 12/8/06, a Briton who was detained this week, ‘spilled the beans’ on the alleged plot precipitating the alert, yet the British police claim to have had the ‘group’ under surveillance for some months.

Another report talks of an agent who had infiltrated the group. What was this person’s role? Was he an agent provocateur?

And if it was such a threat to life and limb, why did the authorities wait five days before making arrests?

As with all the previous ‘terror alerts’, all kinds of stories get leaked to the media in dribs and drabs, designed specifically to sow confusion and fear. Trying to piece together events would tax even the illustrious (if fictional) powers of Sherlock Holmes, but this is entirely the point of such disinformation.

Should holes in the story emerge, as they already have, without a definitive explanation, it is easy for the state to deny that it has anything to do with the plethora of tidbits conveniently leaked to the press.

The previous week, home sec Reid gave a major speech in London at which he announced that we face “probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war” and accused opponents of the government’s anti-democratic legislation of undermining the “war on terror.” Very convenient timing indeed, leading one to suspect that Reid was all too aware of the events that unfolded this week.

And as per usual, the government announcements about the alleged plotters are so vague and open-ended that anyone who wants to try and understand exactly what these guys were allegedly up to, are no wiser.

I should explain that blowing up people in tubes and planes is not my idea of how to bring about change, at best it’s misguided, at worst it’s pathological and open to manipulation as we have seen over and over again, by agents of the state.

Interestingly, the latest research reveals that the overwhelming majority of ‘suicide bombers’ carry them out for secular reasons. At least half identify themselves as ‘left wing’ (whatever that means these days).

“The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign-over 95 percent of all the incidents-has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.” – Professor Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

So when Bush called them “Islamo-fascists”, he got it all wrong but then that’s the whole point of pushing the Muslim thing, because it avoids dealing with the underlying causes and also obscures the essential issues.

As Pape points out (and he’s no lefty), the overwhelming majority of so-called suicide bombers are motivated by political reasons not religious, thus the un-ending torrent of propaganda that seeks to place the blame on religious fanatics serves only to demonise not only those who happen to be sitting on resources the West desperately needs but conveniently sections of our society who are, by virtue of being brown-skinned and one assumes Muslim, handy scapegoats.

Historically, such propaganda campaigns exploit the under-current of racism and xenophobia that is endemic to imperialism, indeed it can be argued that racism and imperialism are inseparable resting as they do on centuries of ideological justification for the crimes of the exploiters.

When individuals and even commissions of inquiry talk of ‘institutional racism’ what they really mean is that the entire state apparatus is complicit in promoting a world view that sees Western ‘civilisation’ and its so-called values as innately superior simply by virtue of ‘race’. And as the occasional admission by a servant of the state reveals, without tearing down the state apparatus, it is impossible to remove.

Such views are embedded in every aspect of society from education to the criminal justice system. Even our public health system does not escape the insidious poison of the ideology of racism that sees people of colour many times more likely to be incarcerated in mental institutions just as our prisons are bursting with a disproportionate number of poor, black people.

In such a climate, is it any wonder that ‘terror alerts’ are so effective when they focus on those sections of our society already alienated and oppressed?

Notes

Now whether you think the current ‘alert’ is for real or not, the evidence of both the US and UK’s governments involvement in set-ups and provocations is overwhelming.

‘Latest Terror Threat - More Government Foreknowledge’, By Joel Skousen, World Affairs Brief’, 12 August, 2006 http://rense.com/general73/latest.htm

‘The British Terrorist Plot: Stage Two of the October Surprise’ Hassan El-Najjar, August 11, 2006
tinyurl.com/lgwwu

“The Pentagon’s “Second 911"
“Another [9/11] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity to retaliate against some known targets” by Michel Chossudovsky, August 10, 2006
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060810&a rticleId=2942

Seven Morons In A Warehouse
www.infowars.com/articles/terror/
seven_morons_in_a_warehouse.htm

Sears Tower: US Government Creates Another Al-Qaeda Cell
prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/230606searstower.htm

Cooked Canary Wharf Terror Plot Recycled
prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/220606cookedterror.htm

Canadian ‘Terror Plot’ Begins To Unravel
prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/060606terrorplot.htm

Hyped Terror Raid Proves To Be Paper Tiger
prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/050606terrorraid.htm

Toledo Terrorists and Government Entrapment
prisonplanet.com/articles/februa
ry2006/240206toledoterrorists.htm

Twenty-Three Intel Experts Say LA Terror Plot a Sham
prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/100206plotasham.htm

Bush Plays Terror Card With Bogus LA Attack Plot
prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/100206terrorcard.htm

NYC Subway “Plot”: Just Another Fake Terror Alert
www.prisonplanet.com/articles/
october2005/101005faketerror.htm

ALSO SEE: FAKE TERROR ALERTS ARCHIVE
www.prisonplanet.com/archive_war_on_terror.html#alerts

[Roger the Horse]

I'm starting to fear that we're being set up to accept Reid as the new PM. The media seems to be desperate to portray him as the man in charge while Blair is conveniently away on holiday and we're not hearing much from Brown and friends. Can't think why else Blair would stay away with such perfectly set up opportunities to look incredibly earnest, gesture with his little hands, and spout utter drivel.

[spiv]

Roger the Horse may be quite correct in his assumptions, and I also certainly believe that Reid is being 'groomed' to be the next PM (and God helps us all if the arrogant **** should ever be entering no 10).

Watching the early morning BBC news today, I am in despair with the 'sheeple' interviewed who state things like "well, if we all had ID cards I'd feel much safer. If you've got nothing to hide then you should have no objections!".

Can someone please explain to me how it would prevent terrorists blowing up aircraft if we all had ID cards please? The interviewees were, I assume, standing in a queue of passengers who all held passports, but, as is usual in the brainwashing media, this fact was overlooked.

This latest 'terrorist' scare (because I am quite convinced that it is all phoney) is just an attempt to get more anti-terror legislation moving in the Autumn further eroding our rights and freedoms, to get ID cards generally accepted, and to conveniently "discover a link" to either Hizbolah or possibly direct to Iran, so that Bush can extend his illegal wars and occupations.

I sincerely hope that the people of the world one day see him (and his cronies and puppet Bliar) put on trial for war crimes one day when the truth about this so called "war on terrorism" does emerge into the public domain.

[Uma]

It'll happen, Spiv.

[Banish]

[Roger the Horse]

[Justin]

Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?

By Thomas C Greene in Washington

Published Thursday 17th August 2006 09:42 GMT

Analysis The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air;
And a loud voice came forth out of the temple of Heaven,
From the throne, saying, "It is done!"
--Revelation 16:17

Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who've employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God's wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain.

The funny thing about these movies is, we never learn just which two chemicals can be handled safely when separate, yet instantly blow us all to kingdom come when combined. Nevertheless, we maintain a great eagerness to believe in these substances, chiefly because action movies wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't.

Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard.

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.)


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, as Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Flight_243) neatly illustrates), it's necessary to synthesize a good amount of TATP with care.

Jack Bauer sense

So the fabled binary liquid explosive - that is, the sudden mixing of hydrogen peroxide and acetone with sulfuric acid to create a plane-killing explosion, is out of the question. Meanwhile, making TATP ahead of time carries a risk that the mission will fail due to premature detonation, although it is the only plausible approach.

Certainly, if we can imagine a group of jihadists smuggling the necessary chemicals and equipment on board, and cooking up TATP in the lavatory, then we've passed from the realm of action blockbusters to that of situation comedy.

It should be small comfort that the security establishments of the UK and the USA - and the "terrorism experts" who inform them and wheedle billions of dollars out of them for bomb puffers and face recognition gizmos and remote gait analyzers and similar hi-tech phrenology gear - have bought the Hollywood binary liquid explosive myth, and have even acted upon it.

We've given extraordinary credit to a collection of jihadist wannabes with an exceptionally poor grasp of the mechanics of attacking a plane, whose only hope of success would have been a pure accident. They would have had to succeed in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence, and in spite of being under police surveillance for a year.

But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy. We have reacted to a movie plot. Liquids are now banned in aircraft cabins (while crystalline white powders would be banned instead, if anyone in charge were serious about security). Nearly everything must now go into the hold, where adequate amounts of explosives can easily be detonated from the cabin with cell phones, which are generally not banned.

Action heroes

The al-Qaeda franchise will pour forth its bowl of pestilence and death. We know this because we've watched it countless times on TV and in the movies, just as our officials have done. Based on their behavior, it's reasonable to suspect that everything John Reid and Michael Chertoff know about counterterrorism, they learned watching the likes of Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Vin Diesel, and The Rock (whose palpable homoerotic appeal it would be discourteous to emphasize).

It's a pity that our security rests in the hands of government officials who understand as little about terrorism as the Florida clowns who needed their informant to suggest attack scenarios, as the 21/7 London bombers who injured no one, as lunatic "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, as the Forest Gate nerve gas attackers who had no nerve gas, as the British nitwits who tried to acquire "red mercury," and as the recent binary liquid bomb attackers who had no binary liquid bombs.

For some real terror, picture twenty guys who understand op-sec, who are patient, realistic, clever, and willing to die, and who know what can be accomplished with a modest stash of dimethylmercury.

You won't hear about those fellows until it's too late. Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven't got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots.

Meanwhile, the real thing draws ever closer. ®

[kbo234]

The New York Times named the explosive that the High Wycombe 'terrorists' were planning to use as HMTD. Here is how they would have to make it in the plane toilet cubicle.

Rather good for a giggle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/europe/28plot.html

(We might well ask why much of the material printed in this article has not been published in the UK media)


How to Make "HMTD" Exposive


HMTD

WARNING: HMTD is dangerous and sensitive to FRICTION, SHOCK, HEAT OR FLAME.
Handle with great care !! Even wet HMTD is dangerous and will detonate with
ease.This is a dangerous explosive! If this explosive is let to sit in the
sun, IT WILL DETONATE! If you do not have experience with explosives DO NOT
MAKE THIS.
Due to the extreme sensitivity to heat, shock, and friction make HMTD a poor
choice for the lesser skilled chemist.

Information on HMTD:

HMTD is a very unstable primary explosive compound that can be made from
hexamethylenetetramine, hydrogen peroxide, and citric acid.

With this explosive it is possible to create a blasting cap. This primary
shock wave will detonate the base charge in the caps. The base charge of the
cap is normally R.D.X. or some other high explosive. The base charge needs
to be powerful and stable, but still sensitive to the primary detonation
wave. The 6700 M/sec. plus base charge detonation velocity, will set off the
main charge.

HMTD is a high performance initiating explosive. It is one of the better
initiating explosives but has some definite drawbacks. HMTD is not stable at
even slightly elevated temperatures. Room temperature will even cause a
decrease in performance with storage time. As one would imagine, due to the
extreme excess of oxygen, the corrosion of metals in contact with the
peroxide is a problem. The metals that will cause problems are aluminum,
zinc, antimony, brass, copper, lead and iron. These metals in contact with
the HMTD even when dry, will cause corrosion.

DETONATION VELOCITY: 4511 M/sec. @ 0.88 G/cc
5100 M/sec. @ 1.10 G/cc

FRICTION SENSITIVITY: Very Sensitive!!!

BEHAVIOR TO FLAME: Small quantities flash like guncotton Large
accumulations will detonate.

Materials Sources
----------------

Hexamethylenetetramine C6H12N4 - solid fuel tablets for camping out
available at army surplus stores. Also known as urotropine, hexamine,
methenamine, etc.

Hydrogen Peroxide 6% H2H2 - or stronger. It can be purchased at a beauty
supply store. It is sold as hair bleach. I asked them for hydrogen peroxide.
They said that they don't sell pure H2H2 but they gave me a product that was
used in the process of lightening hair. I got the strongest number. If you
look at the back of the bottle is shows that H2H2 is the main ingredient.

Citric Acid C6H8O7 - Available at Drug or Food stores, known as "sour salt"
(I ordered it from "The King Arthur Flour Baker's Catalogue)

Containers, (I used empty yogurt containers)

Coffee filter

Teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoons

Pan

Distilled water

Procedure
---------
Measure 9 teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide into a container. In 3 portions,
dissolve 2.5 teaspoons of crushed hexamine in the peroxide. Keep the
solution cool for 30 minutes by placing the container in a pan of cold
water. In 5 portions, dissolve 4.5 teaspoons of crushed citric acid in the
hexa-peroxide solution. Permite solution to stand at room temperature or in
the refrigerator until solid particles for at the bottom of the container.

Note: Complete precipitation will take place in 8-24 hours

Filter the mixture through a coffee filter into a container to collect the
solid particles. Wash the solid particles collected in the coffee filter
with 6 teaspoons of distilled water by pouring the water over them. Discard
the liquid in the container. Allow to dry. In a COOL dry place. NOT IN THE
SUN! Place these explosives in a container.

Note: Handle dry explosive with great care. Do not scrape or handle it
roughly. Keep from open sparks or flames. Store in a cool, dry place. You
can see what happened bellow when left in the sun.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------

Bellow is a picture of an accidental detonation of HMTD. The coffee filter
with the HMTD was drying after filtration. I was not thinking and I left it
in the sun. The HMTD went off from the intense heat from the sun, making an
enormous BOOM! It sounded like a CO2 bomb. The only reason why it was so
powerful was that it was spread out over the entire filter. You can see what
damage it did to the bench it was laying on. The hole that was blown in the
bench was about eight inches across. If the HMTD went off while I was
working on it, I would have been a goner.

[hmtd_boom.gif (154720 bytes)] [hmtd_boom2.gif (75975 bytes)]

You can see how dangerous and unstable HMTD is. Extreme caution would be
taken when making HMTD.

Some of the chemicals needed for HMTD:

[hmtd_chem.jpg (85138 bytes)]

READ THIS! When the complete precipitation has taken place a filmy layer
should have formed. I have noticed sometimes there will be less or almost
no film in the container. When this happens BE CAREFUL it usually means
that it is a LOT more powerful then usual.

[Mark Gobell]

Other searches show that HMTD was claimed to be the detonator of choice for the August event on an ABC News Blog, note not a "news article", on 17th August !

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/08/explosives_link.html

Complete silence so far from the UK media.

Hmmm. Another case of US hyperventilation ?

There is a thread here:

http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1327

Although there is this possibly worrying precedent:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,659214,00.html

Although that does seem rather a lot of material to have manufactured under controlled conditions just for detonators.

The BBC have the material here in that case as high explosives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1845534.stm

Read the BBC link and related links, this "old" plot from 2002 is, er, well interesting to say the least.

I particularly enjoyed this little gem:

The court was told that detectives discovered a file at a property in Stockport containing titles such as "Guerilla's Arsenal" and "Middle Eastern Terrorist Bomb Design".

Another example of a particular apposite handbook description:

Files on Dr Faisal Mostafa's hard drive included one entitled "Mujahideen Explosives Handbook", a jury at Birmingham Crown Court was told.

Another file on the computer was "Guerilla's Arsenal: Advanced Techniques for Making Explosives and Time Delay Bombs", the prosecution alleges

An obvious case of extreme literalism, clearly.

The ahem, chemist, Dr Mostafa was acquitted of the terrorist charge in 2002. Just as he had been in 1997. Which makes him a very lucky man indeed doesn't it ?

And no, I am not making it up.

Honest.

[brian]

Times Blocks Article to U.K. Web Readers


Tuesday, August 29, 2006

NEW YORK - The New York Times' Web site is blocking British readers from a news article detailing the investigation into the recent airline terror plot, turning its Internet ad-targeting technology into a means of complying with U.K. laws.

"We had clear legal advice that publication in the U.K. might run afoul of their law," Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty said Tuesday. "It's a country that doesn't have the First Amendment, but it does have the free press. We felt we should respect their country's law."

Visitors who click on a link to the article, published Monday, instead got a notice explaining that British law "prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial." The blocked article reveals evidence authorities have in the alleged plot to use liquid explosives to down U.S. airliners over the Atlantic.

The Times site already targets ads based on a visitor's location, but McNulty said this was the first time the technology was used in an editorial capacity. The Times also blocked U.K. access to an audio summary of the top Times stories, which included the article in question.

Other news organizations have blocked content before, mostly for financial reasons, said Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

For example, the British Broadcasting Corp. has been testing online access to landmark television reports of major world events from the past half-century. But it said it cannot make the video available for free outside of Britain because it is funded through an annual levy on British TV owners.

The BBC and other organizations also have blocked audio and video of Olympics competition because they bought licenses only for specific geographic regions. Likewise, to protect broadcast contracts, Major League Baseball has used similar technology to prevent live online access to games involving hometown teams.

The underlying blocking technology, known as geotargeting or geolocation, checks the numeric Internet address of a visitor's computer against databases showing the company or service provider to which that address was assigned.

The technique is not foolproof.

A British computer modem could, for instance, make an international call to make the visitor appear to be coming from, say, the United States.

And British readers could find excerpts posted on Web journals and other unblocked sites. In fact, the Daily Mail of London published an article on the case, attributing details to the Times.

"No doubt an intrepid computer user will probably be able to access the article," Geist said. But "I suspect the majority simply won't bother."

Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Harvard and Oxford universities, said he doubts whether U.K. officials would crack down.

"They all basically want to say they made some effort," he said. The Times "can say the laws are respected. The British can say the laws are respected. And everyone can read the story."

McNulty said the technology may not be 100 percent reliable, but "we've done everything that we could."

The Times also is keeping the article out of printed editions published in the U.K. or mailed to U.K. subscribers. And it is stripping the item from a news service for ships and hotels printed by a company in Liverpool.

McNulty said the last time the newspaper blocked a specific article was about 15 years ago. The newspaper feared that Canadian authorities would confiscate an edition that reported on a sex abuse trial, she said, so the item was kept out of the early editions that got sent to Canada.

It's not clear whether the Times' decision would make it more likely for news organizations to engage in country-specific self-censorship in the future, particularly in areas involving libel, where protections aren't as strong outside the United States.

After all, courts already have applied country-specific laws to the borderless Internet.

An Australia court in 2002 allowed a defamation case against Dow Jones & Co. to be heard in that country because people there could have read the article in question online. The case was ultimately settled.

Earlier, a French judge had ordered Yahoo Inc. to prevent French users from encountering Nazi paraphernalia banned in France on the Yahoo auction site meant for U.S. visitors.

"Courts will start to take note of the availability of those technologies," Geist said. "Now that it's increasingly proven technology with a base level of effectiveness, I expect we'll see that consideration."

http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=news&referrer=email&id= 20060829/44f3bbc0_3ca6_15526200608291588429157

[Mark Gobell]

Thanks Brian.

We must all now rely on what our beloved media tell us about these cases and cannot avail ourselves of what the US is saying about them.

Question is: how can the UK media publish what they do about these cases to UK readers, after arrests but before any suspect is charged and tried, when internet readers cannot read what the US says ?

We are allowed to cosume what the UK media contrives to feed us, but not what the US media feeds it's consumers.

Does that also mean that US print editions on sale here will be different too ?

In effect this means that UK media can print what is released to them, or otherwise, because someone somewhere will argue that it is in the public's interest, yet internet users cannot even read, let alone publish how the US government is spinning a UK legal case.

Yet it's OK for UK media to reproduce US sourced claims about explosive types for example, as in 7/7 & 21/7, when it suits the PTB.

Looking forward, as this geo-censorship becomes more widely known it could in fact rebound in our masters faces.

How I wonder do they hope to instill the desired levels of terror by using the UK media as they no doubt will continue to do, if that method could risk succesful judicial outcomes, challenged on the very basis of the principles that are being applied here on the internet.

They surely can't have it both ways.

On the other hand, such controversy could result in another desirable position, with trials held completely in camera perhaps ?

[Mark Gobell]

kbo

Are you in the UK or US ?

The Blairwatch link above, includes this link to the NY Times article that still seems to be available from the UK.

http://www.creative-designs.net/?p=14

Incredible as it may seem but:

Though British officials usually release little information about continuing investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects were charged.

My point exactly.

Also, why are the UK authorities releasing any information about sub judicial cases, to the UK, US or anyone ?

We are in a position when the information flow must be kept for US propaganda purposes but we in the UK cannot be privvy to it, unless it eminates from our own esteemed organs.

Among my many posts of August 10th I announced I would be selling my Lucozade shares post haste.

Rather prescient of me ne c'est pas?

I just love the new version of "Let's Roll". Apparently it's "Go Now".

It would seem that Moody Blues lyrics are the new undecipherable code words of choice for intercontinental jihadist terrorists.