Yikes…
Two undercover NYPD cops in a sting operation used $7,000 and the Internet to build a truck bomb big enough to blow up a skyscraper, officials revealed yesterday.
In what was dubbed “Operation Kaboom,” every purchase the cops made was legal — and aroused little suspicion — even driving their simulated truck bomb throughout the city.
Although the two cops had no specialized knowledge of bomb-making, they were able manufacture an explosive more powerful than the one used in the 1993 World Trade Center attack.
“We did it with no difficulty whatsoever,” said [Richard] Falkenrath, the NYPD’s top anti-terror cop, who testified at a congressional hearing yesterday and disclosed the making of the bomb. When the operation was complete, the officers drove the simulated bomb around the city’s bridges and tunnels, sources said. They were not detected.
There is one, tiny bit of good news in this otherwise skin-crawling story: When the cops tried to buy 2,450 pounds of ammonium nitrate in upstate Rensselaer County, it “aroused some suspicion from the owner of the distribution plant, who contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms following the purchase. The ATF launched an investigation, but the NYPD notified them that it was an undercover operation.”
Truck Bomb: Too Easy
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve got to agree with Pedestrian here. We’ve known since ’95 how powerful truck bombs can be. There’s no way to prevent them from being created–the materials are just too commonly available. So it’s either vigilance on the part of the citizenry, become a police state, or suffer from repeated terrorist attacks. I choose an alert citizenry.
By the way, do any chemists here know if there may be an additive that could be mixed with production ammonium nitrate which would prevent it from going ka-boom? It seems if there were a chemical we could add to all ammonium nitrate produced here, it would be one more hurdle for a would-be Tim McVeigh.
You think that’s easy? Do you that people sometimes accidentaly make chlorine gas ~ala WWI?
http://www.nj.com/newslogs/starledger/index.ssf?/mtlogs/njo_ledgerupdate/archives/2006_08.html
http://www.njherald.com/286754275777915.php
“Vernon police and the Sussex County Hazmat team were dispatched to the park around 3 p.m., after park officials noticed the two chemicals,[muriatic acid and chlorine]” which “don’t get along so well,” were mixed in a 1,000 gallon storage tank, General Manager Scott Deisley said.”
Thats hydrocloric acid and pool clorine. Stored in big color coded buckets with big labels saying DO NOT MIX. And they accidentaly release a cloud of chlorine gas into a crowded water park, in August.
The amount of stuff that the average Joe can come up with to make his neighbors life miserable or end, wil lmake you want to curl up in a ball and suck your thumb.
“Anyone seen my Horse? No? Well can you help me shut the door?”
wtf do these terrorists do for work? i mean seriously…all this time on their hands to sit around coming up with bunker busters made from Ryder trucks and explosive sneakers…how are they paying the bills? if it’s all being done on school grants, i’d say we need to shut down the availability of education to foreigners. half the time our kindness just comes back to bite us in the ass…like 9/11.
Since it’s not possible to stop bombs being made from commonly available ingredients, it becomes that much more important to stop bombers.
You stop bombers by knowing who they are and what they’re up to. And that’s done by monitoring phone conversations and emails by likely suspects — a practice that is regularly pilloried and derided on this website (“Snoopapalooza”, etc).
Ya can’t have it both ways, unfortunately.
The last time I rented a truck I needed to show 3 photo IDs, not just 2… so that meant, driver’s license, passport, and bank card. Had anything amiss happened, the company (and presumably FBI) would know whodunnit within seconds.
But there are ways around this of course – fake IDs or stolen IDs work – hence we have 11 million illegals working in the country… and buying smaller amounts over a long period of time also works to lower suspicion… if you get into farming, you’re going to need fertilizer and fuel – and probably trucks too… so we go back to intel, HUMINT, and wire-taps of various forms of ‘communication’.
Nobody wants to live in a police state, and not many recognize how much of a police state the US has become.
In many ways we rival Nazi Germany in our behavior: genocide (adult males not allowed to leave Falluja with civilians, sent back to die in the carnage when the US leveled that city); human rights abuses (detainment without charge or representation); torture (in Iraq and secret prisons throughout Europe); disproportionate military funding at the expense of domestic programs; propaganda and control of media; suppression of information; corruption, cronyism and protection of corporate power (Cheney and Halliburton, secret energy committees); election fraud (Florida and Ohio, electronic voting machines with no trail, the Conyers hearing); religious fanaticism (
Noah (the other one)
You are always amusing my friend. Let
But the purchase of the ammonium nitrate in Rensselaer aroused some suspicion from the owner of the distribution plant, who contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms following the purchase. The ATF launched an investigation, but the NYPD notified them that it was an undercover operation.
Had this been a real plot, wouldn’t the plotters most likely have been caught?
Fascinating to read how many people do not want a free country. Wake up. Without freedom, it ain’t America!
And I’ll bet the same guys arguing for all kinds of wiretapping and “humint” will fight gun control to their last breath.
As others have noted, the system worked. ATF was on it. Without the NYPD intervention, the “bombers” would have been targets themselves.
Why can’t you accept success?
Sorry, teacher, the website ate my HTML formatting. Just to make it clear, the first paragraph of my comment (2 comments ago) is a direct quote from the article.
C-Low, It’s very simple really: do unto others …
If you treat others well, it’s more difficult for them to treat you poorly. If you stomp all over them you are inviting the same in return.
We’ve been fed a load of bull about terrorism: they hate our freedom, etc. The truth is ‘they’ hate what we have done to them, and terrorism is as much a political tool as conventional warfare.
Just look at our history in the middle east, Overthrowing governments (Iran in ’53, Iraq in ’68); overt support for despotic regimes (Saudi Arabia in particular); massive supply of armaments (including chemical weapons); unilateral support for Israel including veto of hundreds of UN Security Council resolutions against them; development of Islamic fundamentalist armies to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan; failure to rebuild either Afghanistan (1980′s and 2002) or Iraq (1991 and 2003) after our military adventures there, etc.
It’s not just Bush, he’s simply the latest in a long line of imperialists. The