Chemical Reactions Taught
Updated: 20:11, Thursday January 18, 2007
One of the alleged July 21 bombers studied chemistry at college, where he would have been taught about rates of reaction for substances, their trial has heard.
Yassin Omar, who is accused with five others of trying to target London's transport network, took a GNVQ intermediate course from 1998 to 1999.
Omar would have learnt how different factors, such as temperature, could increase the chemical rate of reaction of substances, Woolwich Crown Court was told.
After the alleged failed bomb attacks in July 2005, notes from a GNVQ intermediate chemistry course were found at Omar's home - the alleged "bomb factory" in New Southgate, north London, it was said.
They included a description of the components of fertiliser and the ionic bonding of magnesium oxide, and made references to other substances including silver nitrate and barium chloride.
"In the name of Allah" was also written on one of the pages, the jury heard.
The six accused Omar's Enfield College chemistry teacher, Ann Obatomi, told the southeast London court that when he took the course, the syllabus included "looking at the effects of temperature, the use of catalysts, to increase the rate of reaction".
Mrs Obatomi said hydrogen peroxide could be used to investigate rates, and it was used in a very diluted form in the college laboratory.
Omar took four hours of chemistry a week but at the end of the academic year, in summer 1999, his attendance tailed off and he failed the course, it was said.
Earlier, the prosecution said it was unclear if the suspects' bombs failed to detonate because they had been manufactured incorrectly or because of hot weather on July 21 affecting the chemicals.
Omar, 26, Muktar Said Ibrahim, 28, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, Hussain Osman, 28, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, and Adel Yahya, 24, all deny charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life. The trial continues.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-13563579,00.html?f=rss
LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico: Someone has stolen a fake nuclear bomb, according to its owner.
The faux 500-pound (225-kilogram) nuke was somehow hefted from a Los Alamos salvage store, the Black Hole, the Los Alamos Monitor reported in Thursday editions. The store is run by Ed Grothus, a Los Alamos peace activist who sells salvage from Los Alamos National Laboratory and other places.
Grothus said he bought several so-called "practice bombs" in Oklahoma about three years ago. He said he last saw it Monday morning, but he noticed it was gone when he was ready to go home that evening.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/18/america/NA-ODD-US-Fake-Bomb.php
2 "suspicious devices" found in northeast EP, Police seek suspect
Jan 15, 2007
EL PASO, Tx. - El Paso Police, Emergency crews and Fort Bliss officials go on alert after two suspicious devices are found buried in a northeast El Paso neighborhood.
Officials tell ABC-7 a driver called authorities shortly after 10am Sunday to report a man burying a suspicious object near the intersection of Justus and Pierce. The location was just down the street from William Beaumont Army Medical Center. According to authorities, the same man buried another object, about a block and a half up the road from the first device.
The El Paso Police Department, Fire Department, Fort Bliss Military Police and officials with the Department of Defense were then dispatched to the area to investigate. When they arrived, crews quickly determined that the devices appeared to be "possible explosive in nature." Crews cordoned off several blocks around Pierce and police officers told area residents not to leave their homes.
http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=5938195
Bomb blasts in Hub, Mastung (Pakistan)
January 18, 2007 Thursday Zilhaj 27, 1427
QUETTA, Jan 17: Two powerful bombs exploded in Hub and Mastung, while rockets were fired at two security checkposts in the Karmo-Wadh area of Kahan tehsil and the Pat Feeder area of Nasirabad district on Wednesday.
Police foiled an attempt to blow up a pylon of power transmission line by defusing two bombs in the Mastung area. According to officials, a bomb was planted beneath a 12-inch diameter pipeline supplying gas to the Hub area that exploded in the Public Health Engineering Colony near the Lasbela Canal area. The pipeline was damaged but gas supply was not interrupted.
Another bomb exploded in an isolated place in the Mastung town late night. No serious damage or casualty was reported. Police defused two powerful bombs planted under a pylon of transmission line in a village, some 10km off Mastung on the RCD Highway.
Meanwhile, militants fired eight rockets at a checkpost of the Frontier Corps in the Karmo-Wadh area of Kahan tehsil. But they exploded in an open area. The militants also attacked a checkpost in the Pat Feeder area of Nasirabad district. "At least eight rockets were fired but none of them hit the target," police said.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/01/18/top11.htm