Posted on 12/26/2009 10:20:58 AM PST by kristinn
The suspect in the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 used a highly explosive substance called PETN, a law enforcement official told CBS News Saturday.
The explosives were carried in a soft plastic container - possibly a condom - though much of the packaging was destroyed in the fire, the official said.
The FBI is questioning the suspect, identified as 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who claimed to be acting on orders from al Qaeda to blow up the airliner, officials said.
A high-ranking law enforcement official told CBS News that the suspect apparently used a syringe to inject a chemical into the powder, which was located near his groin. It is a technique not seen in previous attempted attacks and it's possible that this incident was a test of whether the materials could pass screening and how effective they might be at causing damage, the source said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
LLS
wow - the passengers were very lucky.
Would definitely make it easier to spot "explosive devices" in condoms.
The irony is that PC kills liberals as much as it kills anyone else.
Masoud wasn't killed under Bill Clinton's watch. He was assassinated two days before 9-11-01 by AlQueada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
Eddie Murphy?
One of GWB’s first mistakes was not to do such a house cleaning. IMHO.
We will only be safe again when the White House and Congress realize and admit that ISLAM ITSELF is the enemy of ALL Western civilization...... and decide to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!
He lives in a 7 million dollar apartment. Fairly nice hut, I’d say. His father also notified the US over 6 months ago that his son was associating with terrorists and was concerned.
Both have lower drop test than nitroglycerin It was used in Nukes in the 60s along with Tetn.
I don’t understand why they don’t just outlaw terrorists from flying on airliners or carrying explosives or weapons onto planes.
After all, it works for gun control.
Pentraerythritol tetranitrate is used in Primacord, or blended with RDX and called Semtex. It needs a detonator.
Semtex has a detection taggant added to produce a distinctive vapor signature to aid detection. First, ethylene glycol dinitrate was used, later switched to 2,3-dinitro-2,3-dimethylbutane (3,4-dinitrohexane, DMDNB), which is used currently. According to the manufacturer, the taggant agent was voluntarily being added by 1991, years before the protocol signed became compulsory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentaerythritol
Appearance white solid
white, crystalline polyol
dielectric fluid in transformers. Their low volatility and high flash point give them an excellent resistance to ignition
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN
one of the most powerful high explosives known
PETN's preparation involves the nitration of pentaerythritol with a mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acid. The preferred method of nitration is the ICI method, which utilizes concentrated nitric acid (98%+) alone, as mixed acid can create unstable sulfonated by-products.
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http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109618317/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
The presence of sulphuric acid impurity decreased the thermal stability as well as the activation energy...
-----------------------------Blatant speculation on my part: IF he was carrying PENTAERYTHRITOL (the white powder) and a mixture of Nitric acid and sulfuric acir (in the syringe) in an attempt to manufacture PETN on the plane; the sulfuric acid may have caused a small portion of the PETN being manufactured to become unstable... That might have set the original, as yet unmixed PENTAERYTHRITOL to burn, before it could be mixed in. SPECULATION
Note to UBL and associates: Finding dumb-asses willing to blow themselves up is hardly a challenge, it seems. But hoping that the people they mean to take down with them are also dumb-asses, who won’t notice a passenger setting himself on fire, is unrealistic, and further proof that you are the biggest dumb-asses of them all. Historians will laugh at you, and future generations will build urinals on your ignominious graves. Oh, and those virgins you’re promised? Those that don’t look like Helen Thomas look like Janet Reno, and not a few of the boys as numerous as pearls look like Popeye the Sailor. The rest look like Bluto.
assasin = assassin
Here is another particularly interesting messagethread.
I heard something on TV today and couldn’t believe my ears. Now the narrative about this whole thing is contrasting a “lone wolf”—who is “more easily dismissed”—with an Al Qaeda-sanctioned incident. Not joking—newscaster really did say “dismissed.” They cast these lone terrorists as “free lancers,” which takes some of the sting and urgency out of the story. In the liberal media, the ultimate paradigm is the multiple hits on 9-11, so I guess anything LESS than that is just a wannabe weirdo.
Political Correctness was also responsible for 9/11.
A lot of FBI, CIA and NSA officials during the beginning of Bush's first term and 9/11 were holdovers from the Clinton Administration who didn't want to "ethnic profile" and be "racist" against Muslims.
And don't forget that Clinton let Bin Laden get away when Sudan offered to hand him over to the U.S. because he didn't want to offend Muslims.
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