British authorities thwart terror plot to blow up several aircraftPassengers wait for their flights at Terminal One Heathrow Airport on August 10, 2006 in London, England. London Airports have been thrown into chaos as Airport security has been heightened to critical after a terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US was disrupted by police.Danica Kirka, Canadian PressPublished: Thursday, August 10, 2006LONDON - British authorities said Thursday they thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the United States using explosives smuggled in hand luggage, averting what police described as “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.”Police arrested 21 people, saying they were confident they captured the main suspects in what U.S. officials said was a plot in its final phases that had all the earmarks of an al-Qaida operation. U.S. President George W. Bush called it a “stark reminder” of the continued threat to the United States from extremist Muslims.Officials raised security to its highest level in Britain - suggesting a terrorist attack might be imminent - and banned carry-on luggage on all flights. Huge crowds backed up at security barriers at London’s Heathrow airport as officials searching for explosives barred nearly every form of liquid outside of baby formula.U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the terrorists planned to use liquid explosives disguised as beverages and other common products and set them off with detonators disguised as electronic devices.
Well I’m thinking it could be MEKP or MEKP/AP mixture having readily available precursors and being easy to make.I did a quick search to find many other explosives and explosive mixtures which can be used. Oxyliquits, nitroglycerin, tetranitromethane,
PLX liquid explosive, astrolite.Although many of these may not be suitable for that sort of attack, for obvious reasons (such as instability).
"The bombs were to be assembled on the aircraft apparently using a peroxide-based solution detonated by such devices as a disposable camera or a music player, two American law enforcement officials told The Associated Press."
A peroxide-based liquid solution? Probably acetone (or similar volatile ketone) peroxide, dissolved in the ketone. That sort of explosive (along with perchlorates) would not be picked up by detectors set to detect the IR spectrum of nitro-compounds (probably the N-O stretching frequency of a bond with bond order 1½). It was intended by the Muslim suicide bombers that the liquid explosive be disguised as "fizzy drinks", probably containing a cordial dye. But what sort of detonator could be used to sert off a liquid solution? A conventional detonator which would set a solid explosive off through shock waves in it would not work in a liquid, so it would have to be something producing flame or sparks, like matches or a lighter (not normally allowed in aircraft passenger cabins), or a small but fairly high-voltage battery e.g. the 9 volt "dry-cell" type.I understand that the four Pakistani Muslim suicide bombers in London on 7/7/2005 used solid acetone peroxide in back-packs. The other four a fortnight later, who failed to pull off a repeat performance in London, also used it, but it was a "wet" batch of it that failed to go off although the detonators went off "like firecrackers" (attracting attention to themselves but causing no injuries). The 20 or so terrorists arrested in the latest incident in England were also Pakistani Muslims, so I hear, and there were also arrests in Pakistan itself in connection.
It would make more sense if it was Methyl Ethyl Ketone Peroxide dyed red like Gatorade, planning on using the flash from a disposable camera it ignite the MEKP.
Regardless of WHAT they were planning on using, it's HOW they'd get it on the plane that matters.Since they've got female jihadi's too, the best way to bypass all security measures would be to have saline breast implants inserted into the females, the kind which are filled by injection after implantation, and replace the saline with a liquid explosive just prior to leaving for the airport.This gives little time for any to leak out and cause illness to the female, nor dog/machine detectable odor since it's internal, and millimetric bodyscanners/X-rays will detect nothing hidden under the clothes.Once on board the plane, the jihadi simply stabs the detonator (contained within a spike-like implement) into her breast (deep enough to pierce the implant sac) and fires. Close proximity of the explosive filled sacs to each other (wonderbra?) ensures sympathetic detonation.2x 375mL @1.1SPG= 825gms of HE. Larger implants equal greater boom.Or, substitute a binary CW, and have the jihadhi slit both sacs open, forming the binary agent on the plane.
Eventually they will figure out that they could just spray any variety of explosive with windex bottles on to hundreds of peices of other peoples luggage before they moved through security. Talk about a security nightmare.