I'm not sure it's that odd, seeing that most terrorist plots are "homegrown."
If we had a real threat from terror bombs, we’d see some go off now and then, we’d come across bomb factories, we’d see trafficking in precursor materials and electronics and detonators. We’d find caches of fertilizer and drums of nitric acid. We’d see failed attempts, in which the device did not go off, we’d discover planted devices and attempt to defuse them. That was the case in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where terrorist bombs are an issue.
Instead, we ONLY see cases where the FBI has provided everything except the bang.
There are a very few real cases, the Christmas bomber, and numerous “revenge” type pipe bombs, and stupid kids 9and some crazy adults) who make pipe bombs in their bedrooms (do a news search on “pipe bomb. These are not truly terror bomb cases.
Now that ATF has declared flash powder to be a “high explosive” anyone caught with an M80 or quarter stick is guilty of possessing a “bomb” with HE, and it gets reported as such- I’m not counting those cases.
Another possibility is that all our communications are completely compromised by the feds, and most organizations infiltrated with agents, and all our credit card purchases monitored so that as soon as someone communicates a dangerous idea, they become watched more closely to see if they might be dangerous to the regime or to Official Reality.
In that case, you’d never get to the point where you had a cache of 1200 pounds of fertilizer and three people to help mix the stuff. Actual attempts would be extremely rare, but sting-type busts common.
These guys were flagged as odd and had an informant attached to them. When they “carefully” downloaded the Anarchist Cookbook, one of the guys said, hey, maybe we can just BUY the stuff rather than make it...and at that point the agent said, why, I know some guys!