Terrorism: E-BOMB Is 'New Threat' To U.S.

ADNKI ^ | June 22, 2006 | AKI

[RDTF]

Karachi, 22 June (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - The next terror threat facing the United States is not a nuclear or gas attack but an electro-magnetic bomb or e-bomb - which would shut down telecommunications networks, disrupt power supplies, and destroy countless computers and electronic gadgets, yet still leave buildings, bridges and roads intact. This is according to Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistani intelligence officer who once worked closely with Osama bin Laden. "The e-bomb shall be the new threat for the USA, not the nukes or gas attacks," said Khawaja in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).

Khawaja was a senior official of Pakistani secret service ISI when they were fueling jihadi resistance movements against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and after being forced to retire from the air force, he went to Afghanistan and fought along side with Osama bin Laden. the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Khawaja told AKI that he overheard the reference to the e-bomb in several conversations among Arab fighters in Afghanistan over the years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

“I never heard Osama or Dr. [Ayman al-] Zawahiri discuss a nuclear attack on the USA," he said "and neither did I hear that from any other person."

[rlmorel]

ROTFLMAO!

[SpitfyrAce]

Maybe The Matrix - to kill the squiddies!

[taxcontrol]

An EMP bomb, sometimes called an E-bomb is NOT a nuclear device. It is a bomb that can generate an EMP pulse powerful enough to damage circuitry but is nonnuclear.

It is a threat, but is more complex to make than a basement IED type bomb. It requires a level of engineering that we have not yet seen in any terrorist attack.

[jbstrick]

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm

[TMSuchman]

If I remember correctly there was a story in a Popular Science about this and stated that such a device could be built for around $400.00 and could deployed just about anywhere. it also stated that the U.S. had such devices, but did not deloy them in fear that the effect could not stay in a certian area.

[Disambiguator]

Well, I'm prepared. The grid goes down, I'm ready to FReep by flashlight.

Mash here.

[tortoise]

Is this clown trying to coin a new term?

No. There are an entire range of ways to generate an electromagnetic pulse using a non-nuclear pump. The simplest and most familiar couples a flux compression generator to a radiator -- a conventional explosive powered design. There are some alternative generator designs, but it quickly gets into classified space.

While not particularly complicated in theory, building these from scratch with reliable results requires a certain amount of precision engineering prowess. The Russians arguably did a lot of the pioneering work on these types of devices, and have sold such devices to a few different countries on the record, who knows who has gotten ahold of them off the record.

The limitation is their range. They can generate fields that have nuclear EMP strength, but the power quickly drops off after tens of meters meaning they have to be close to an unshielded target to have a good effect. Disruptive? Yes, but not at the level the scaremongers are suggesting. They are primarily useful against RF communications infrastructure, which is necessarily vulnerable.

[RegulatorCountry]

"If I remember correctly there was a story in a Popular Science about this and stated that such a device could be built for around $400.00 and could deployed just about anywhere"

There was. The appeal of doing so is dampened by the difficulty in getting one of these improvised "e-bombs" to a high enough altitude to cause anything other than localized damage, though.

[Billthedrill]

Not bad. I'm holding out for one of those little generator thingies you can attach to your arm. I figure about three beers will give me an hour of FReeping and massive biceps as well...

[MrEdd]

Equipment made in the last 20 years or so is well shielded so the effect would be limited to very old equipment.

Actually many types of old equipment are immune. Automobiles without a computer (brain) for example would lose what? The radio and air conditioning. The damage comes from a sudden high current pulse that reverse biases semi conductors to a damaging degree and melts many tiny leads, thin wires, and the runs in computer chips.

Because China is working with these weapons, our military is working on a new generation of chips on diamond substrate - not going to melt short of being hit by lightning. Therefore if they want to employ EMP weapons they best do it in the next 5 - 10 years or their window of opportunity will have passed them by.

[nmh]

These BARBARIANS, to put it politely, do NOT have the capablibity to unleash THIS kind of an attack:

"However, I overheard conversations which strongly suggested that there is a section of the anti-American resistance which is seriously pursuing a project aimed at bringing America back to the Stone Age without harming human lives," said Khawaja."

"Khawaja said he overheard references to a plan to use an e-bomb and a project to destroy US satellites, all with the single objective of crippling the American system without actually harming anyone.'

OTOH, the U.S. will most likely, if not already, have THIS ability to hurl them further into caves and looking like the stereotyped Neanderthals.

[tortoise]

Actually many types of old equipment are immune. Automobiles without a computer (brain) for example would lose what? The radio and air conditioning. The damage comes from a sudden high current pulse that reverse biases semi conductors to a damaging degree and melts many tiny leads, thin wires, and the runs in computer chips.

It would be pretty difficult to cause permanent damage to most parts of an automobile. There might be enough to cause a transient failure in the microprocessor, but it would be back to normal when the field dissipated. All that metal in a car provides a lot of excellent shielding. When I've seen demonstrations of spark gap generators messing with a cars computer, it was always with the vehicle very close by and with a non-metal body.

Because China is working with these weapons, our military is working on a new generation of chips on diamond substrate - not going to melt short of being hit by lightning.

The already use sapphire substrates for hardened processors, which in many ways is a more durable and suitable material than diamond. The problem has never been temperature resistance but reactivity and conductivity.

[TMSuchman]

All it would take is an weather ballon filled with helium. You can get those just about anywhere, & they could get to a high enough altitude to do the damage that they want.

[Mike-o-Matic]

Check out this link [popularmechanics.com].

[reluctantwarrior]

The magnetron from a large commercial Microwave oven and a large capacitor or generator mounted inside a van parked next to the NYSE could fry the trading system with a localized EMP Cost would be about 50,000 USD

[Hoplite]

I recall the Canadians were working on something similar back in the '80s.

They called it the "Eh-bomb" until they lost interest, after which it became the "Feh-bomb".

[Restorer]

A continent-wide EMP requires detonation of a nuke of at least one megaton at a very high altitude.

If these ever guys get such a nuke, I can think of a number of uses for it that they would be likely to find more appealing.

[COEXERJ145]

[RDTF]

This is the first report I've read that Alqueda was trying to use it.

[reluctantwarrior]

I was talking about a non nuclear HERF device that can be built today for around 50,000 dollars. If you knock out the NY stock Exchange it would cost millions in lost value in the staock market