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This bothers me.

If I were going to think like a terrorist, with the resources available via the airline industry, I’d focus on binary explosives so that they were not detectable, after I maneuvered the public into a frustrated sense of inadequate and foolish inspection procedures.

I would study the airline industry operations to a fine detail.

Fuel, mechanical, compressed air, baggage, consumables, and water would be obvious areas where a terrorist would focus on compromising security.

Chemical toilets are an interesting objective.

Mechanically they might be modified to become reaction vessels in a relatively stable chemical process to produce larger volumes of relative stable volatile compounds.

The chemical storage tank could be adapted to accept one reagent of a binary chemical mix, with a catalyst or other reagents later added to form a larger explosive as in a binary mix.

Delivery of actual volatile or reagent compounds to the storage vessels on the aircraft might be fairly innocuous.

A booster and primer might be later assembled at the aircraft closer to time of detonation, either by specific operation or further deconvoluted operational exercise.

I wonder if the first attempt was a method to telegraph to multiple dark operatives that a particular method of bringing a booster or primer on board was feasible, and the second operation wasn’t an attempt to test a binary reactant operation.

If it were a clandestine operation, the operative wouldn’t have used the same occupation as the first, unless it provided justifiable collusion amongst conspirators, or unless he was seeking free press or broadcasting of events surrounding his activity.

If I were in charge of security for that airline, I’d freeze the assets at a location where it could be gone over with a fine tooth comb, and I’d process the crap out of everything and everyone associated with that flight and aircraft over the past month.

If I were in charge of the FAA, I’d closely re-evaluate all operational procedures with aircraft, just to change up workflows a bit to make sure somebody wasn’t institutionally allowing several thousand aircraft to inadvertently be turned into bombs by randomly placed passengers.

On the other hand, if intel were really good, they would have already known about this before Thanksgiving, swapped aircraft and nomenclatures, allowed the bad guys to act, to trace their lineage.

My experience with government and impression of this Administration, though, is it is more likely the former.

Or maybe it really is happenstance (My conscience says no way.).

What kind of guys come from Nigeria?