FBI works to thwart kitchen sink bombs

[Kadie]

FBI works to thwart kitchen sink bombs
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago


QUANTICO, Va. - Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.

Ten years ago, peroxide-based bombs were mostly the work of young pranksters. But the easy-to-make yet deadly chemical cocktails were embraced in the late 1990s by Palestinian militants and suicide bombers bent on killing large groups of people.

Now, Yeager says, such explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S.

"Every serious terrorist group knows about them and knows how to make them," Yeager said. The forensic scientist heads the explosives unit at the FBI's laboratory.

The bombs are made by mixing chemicals used in common household items and easily found at drugstores or hardware stores. Experts know them as TATP, short for triacetone triperoxide, and HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070218/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/kitchen_sink_bombs_4

[Cerridwen]

1. Homeowners everywhere classified as terrorists for having

clean, pest free homes!

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ all about it!

edit to add: one suspect was heard to say - "but, Your Honor, I was just trying to clean the ring around the toilet"

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. You can't buy lye

to make soap any more because it is used in making meth. Now you won't be able to buy Drano or any of the other stuff because it could be made into bombs--mark my words, this will happen next.

Might work in our favor, though--people who have no trouble with blowing brown folks up overseas can get really incensed if their drains clog and they can't get them clear.

[napi21]

4. Eliminating those items is a futile effort. I'm sure no bomber, and

I have NO REASON to even think of how to make one, but someone intenton doing so can always resort to gasoline, paint thinner,kerosene, etc. We all know nobody is going to take THOSE items off the market, and they're even MORE readily available than the ones you mentioned!

[Warpy]

5. I know my language isn't pretty the three times a week or so

that my desert climate mandated super low flow toilet stops up. I haven't been moved to homicide yet, but I live alone.

I made a study of homemade explosives when I was an angry and frustrated kid in high school. The variety is truly amazing. However, most of us who know the possibilities have never blown anything up. The few who have stuck to things like an M80 in a roll of TP as the coup de grace of rolling someone's yard or a cherrybomb flushed down a public loo. Most people who have blown houses up are meth cookers and did it quite by accident.

However, if the nanny state really wants to make sure the public won't get access to items that can ruin their days, they'd better ban cars. Molotov cocktails are still the easiest explosive device to make out there.

The nanny state is in grave danger of making it such a pain in the ass to live from day to day that revolution will be inevitable. They're already destroying the airline industry for our own good, and "I only fly somewhere if I absolutely have to," is becoming more and more frequently heard among people who would like to take a faraway vacation but who don't want to be strip searched on the way.

Frightened conservative bunnyrabbits are going to have to come to terms with the fact that the world can't be made completely safe. I suggest they start with unbanning Drano.

[Homer Wells]

9. Very shortly, I imagine

the Cable channels will be forced to ban all re-runs of McGyver. You learned a lot of interesting shit on that show.



:evilgrin:

[soothsayer]

8. Damn! We used to make hyrdogen balloons using lye and tinfoil

and coke bottles. I'm sure it wasn't pure hydrogen---more of a 'water gas'---but you could inflate a balloon on the end of a coke bottle and then tie it off with a string and light the string and get a nice little floating hindenberg type thing. Fun!

[Trillo]

11. I didn't know that. Lye is used to process Olives into a food.

When I was a kid, my parents had two olive trees, and lye was used to soak a toxin out of the olives, before soaking in salt water to remove the lye. I think the process took several weeks.

Is it true that if I buy and grow some olive trees (which are low water use plants), that I won't be able to purchase lye to make my own edible olives?

If it's true, is this something that is also beneficial ($$$) to commercial olive processors?

[kineneb]

15. but lye is so easy to make

take wood ash and run water over it, allow to evaporate.

...mix with tallow, make soap! That is how our ancestors did it.

(I read the instructions back in the days of the Whole Earth Handbook...dating myself...)

edited to add this reference, a great site, incidently...
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_ashlye.html

[blogslut]

17. not even red devil?

It's been about three years since I made soap but I used red devil for lye.

[Danieljay]

3. yawn...

be afraid...be very afraid! BOO! We know the drill.

[Edweird]

6. yeah, that's the problem.... "kitchen sink" bombs.... puhleaze

:eyes:
Gunpowder is available at sporting goods stores and gunshops. Gasoline and diesel are available everywhere.
Not to mention the fact the these peroxide based explosives are terribly unstable. They can detonate at the slightest disturbance. Not very practical.
Just more BS to keep everybody afraid.
Next it'll be "pop rocks" and soda.

[jmowreader]

7. Two comments are in order

1) I want Kirk Yeager's job.

2) I consider TATP the LEAST likely explosive a terrorist would use in the US. It is very easy to make and very powerful...it's also extremely unstable. According to The Times of London, at least 40 Palestinians are known to have died while making TATP. And it's completely unnecessary to do this in the US because ammonium nitrate and diesel are so easy to get.

[Porcupine]

10. Oxidizer, magnesium, fertilizer, propane.....

there are so many opportinities for serious mayhem at any hardware store it's crazy. To pretend the FBI is going to stop all of the possible combinations is just as crazy.

Restricting the sale of lye prevents people from making biodiesel but it does nothing really to stop the meth cookers. I see no reduction in the supply of drugs around here.

[jmowreader]

13. You just nailed down the real reason lye sales are restricted

If a lot of people start making biodiesel, it will cut down on the revenue from road taxes, and it will reduce oil company profits. That's bad.

[NNN0LHI]

12. Doesn't the FBI have more important things to do than investigate stink bombs?

B-)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. Feds really need to look into sphincter bombs

caused by FBI agents pulling their heads out of their rectums too quickly. Especially with those flat-top haircuts. Bang!

:rofl:

uh, or are they "recta"?

[kineneb]

16. don't forget other goodies

ammonia+chlorine=chlorine gas

that is why the labels say don't mix bleach with liquid dish soap...bet you wondered why!