With the recent false alerts such as the
Seas of David and the
Canadian Terror Plot in June and July of this year respectively, immediate flags went up when hearing about the liquid terror cell that was allegedly foiled in Great Britain. With such a challenge as turning the plane lavatory into a mini chemical lab to cook TATP explosives, the question is could they have pulled it off?
An article by
Thomas C. Greene looks into the plausibility of such a plan:
We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.
Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard.
More about Triacetone Triperoxide or TATP :
Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.
Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked "perishable foods"), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them.
It's best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate - especially if you have those cold gel-packs handy to supplement the ice, and the Styrofoam chiller handy for insulation - to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie.
And now turning the lavvie into a lab:
Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.
After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.
I encourage readers to link to Mr. Greene's entire article.
The idea of 21 jihadists on 10 planes flying over the Atlantic all simultaneously trying to cook up TATP in the bathrooms is an image that I find hard to swallow. Even a hollywood film screenwriter would find it a bit too fantastic.
There are far easier methods to instill terror that don't require sneaking through airport security and cooking chemicals in a 3 foot by 3 foot bathroom.
This is not to say that there aren't real threats to our security -- and there are cases of bomb assembly in plane bathrooms such as in the case of Philippines Flight 434.
The difference being that on Flight 434 the explosive was liquid nitroglycerin, which did not require any mixing. Only assembling the detonator and timer was done in the lavatory. It should also be pointed out that although the bomb did go off as planned, there were only 10 people injured with one fatality and the plane safely landed one hour later.
Ramzi Yousef who assembled the bomb on Flight 434 is better known for his hand in the WTC Bombing in 1993 is a dangerous man with strong ties to Al-Qaeda and is hardly in the same category as many of the alleged terrorists they we have seen arrested recently.
So why are we seeing such a high number of false arrests and terror plots that have no hard evidence such as bombs or bomb making material? Obviously there is a push by officials in our British and U.S. Governments to keep us scared and in fear.
But there is another element here too, that is not being addressed and that is the old "CYA" -- cover your ass. With publicity of foiled terror plots we are given the impression that our government is working hard to protect us and beating Al-Qaeda. But we are constantly told that we have to be successful every time and they only have to be successful once.
The false terrorism arrests are deliberately designed to ratchet up the numbers of "caught" terrorists so that when the real thing hits they'll be able to claim how hard they worked but that one was destined to slip through. This is a point that we must all understand for it's not just fear they are pushing. It is deliberate deceit of the effectiveness of our Homeland Security.
This is why we cannot allow this nonsense to continue and we must say -- BOLLOCKS!