So initial reports said the bombs were crude, then on Saturday officials changed their mind and said they were military-grade. But today they are saying they were made in a Leeds kitchen sink.
So which is it?
Now we have Magdy el-Nashar, arrested in Egypt, who we are told is an al-Qaeda chemist. The Guardian reports:
El-Nashar, who studied at North Carolina State and Leeds University, was being interrogated by Egyptian authorities...
in other words they are torturing a confession out of him. What we expect to find at some stage is that there is a clear al-Qaida link, a clear al-Qaida approach, because the four men who are dead, who we believe are the bombers, are in the category of foot soldiers," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair explained.
No doubt, after el-Nashar's testicles are shocked with a field telephone battery, he will provide the necessary background information on this "clear al-Qaida link." Since forensic evidence is required to pedal the story el-Nashar served as an al-Qaeda chemist in Leeds, the Scotsman dutifully reports that a ...highly volatile explosive -- acetone peroxide -- has been discovered in a house in Leeds thought to have been used as a bomb-making factory. The home-made explosives found in Leeds are similar to those used in other al-Qaida-linked attacks. They were also used by shoe-bomber Richard Reid."
I was under the impression Reid used a "very, very sophisticated" plastic explosive (PETN-based material), but now we are told acetone peroxide (or triacetone triperoxide) was used. This is a shocking development in the sense that earlier ideas about commercial or military grade explosive being used in the bombs themselves would therefore seem to be wrong," notes a "security source" quoted by the Scotsman.
In other words, since it is dangerous for the cover story to have any link to military technology (and thus a link possibly leading back to military intelligence), a new story has emerged: an "al-Qaeda chemist" mixed up the explosives in a kitchen sink in the Burley area of Leeds (the explosive mix, as the Times Online tells us, is nicknamed Mother of Satan).
The fact that Richard Reid's shoe contained PETN was well-documented in many mainstream media articles. So why are authorities saying that acetone peroxide is the same thing as pentaerythritoltetranitrate (PETN)?
See also the discussion in this explosives chat room revealing a degree of skepticism towards the official line that the bombs were made of acetone peroxide.
Anyone out there curious about this mutating inconsistency?
This is only one of many in the ongoing evolution of the official London bombing story.