Terrorists 'plan attack on Britain with bombs INSIDE their bodies' to foil new a

[thundley4]

Britain is facing a new Al Qaeda terror threat from suicide ‘body bombers’ with explosives surgically inserted inside them.
Until now, terrorists have attacked airlines, Underground trains and buses by secreting bombs in bags, shoes or underwear to avoid detection.
But an operation by MI5 has uncovered evidence that Al Qaeda is planning a new stage in its terror campaign by inserting ‘surgical bombs’ inside people for the first time.

Security services believe the move has been prompted by the recent introduction at airports of body scanners, which are designed to catch terrorists before they board flights.
It is understood MI5 became aware of the threat after observing increasingly vocal internet ‘chatter’ on Arab websites this year.
The warning comes in the wake of the failed attempt by London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.
One security source said: ‘If the terrorists are talking about this, we need to be ready and do all we can to counter the threat.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247338/Terrorists-plan-attack-Britain-bombs-INSIDE-bodies-foil-new-airport-scanners.html#ixzz0eJZ1vaKR

This exact thing was discussed on here at least a month ago. Not much to do against this type of attack short of profiling and not allowing Muslims to exist travel on and in public places.

[Chris_]

This exact thing was discussed on here at least a month ago. Not much to do against this type of attack short of profiling and not allowing Muslims to exist travel on and in public places.

They can  certainly check for recent surgical  scarring, as in order to implant a significant charge, the incision would need to be somewhat large.......and I would think that it would need to be recent, as the expolisve container would begin to degrade, and cause serious health issues for the bomber.....

doc

[debk]

They can  certainly check for recent surgical  scarring, as in order to implant a significant charge, the incision would need to be somewhat large.......and I would think that it would need to be recent, as the expolisve container would begin to degrade, and cause serious health issues for the bomber.....

doc

Drug smugglers insert condoms into their rectums or swallow them.....

Could not a suicide bomber do something similar.

Looking for recent surgical scars ....ha.....I'm sure that's against someone's civil liberties. The ACLU would fight that type of checking regardless of who it is....

This doesn't surprise me at all.....it was only a matter of time....

[bkg]

Drug smugglers insert condoms into their rectums or swallow them.....

Could not a suicide bomber do something similar.

Looking for recent surgical scars ....ha.....I'm sure that's against someone's civil liberties. The ACLU would fight that type of checking regardless of who it is....

This doesn't surprise me at all.....it was only a matter of time....

Agree with you. All we are doing is reacting in knee-jerk fashion w/o considering the consequences. It's typical, IMHO. And the updated security precautions will do less to protect us from terrorism than it will to provide more control to the gov't. Proven, IMHO, by the posts above.

It is time to protect this country - Profiling is needed. Period.

[Eupher]

From a purely chemical/physics point of view, this is interesting and perplexing. (And for the record, I am neither a chemist nor a physicist.)

I was wondering a bit about oxygen, which is at least an element that's nice-to-have if you're going to blow something up. A detonation is an out-of-control, rapid burn, right? Apparently, PETN doesn't seem to require oxygen per se; according to this article, the whole idea of a bomb inside the body has already been attempted.

Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", tried to set off a PETN device – on an American Airlines jet to Miami in 2001 – and this summer a man tried to assassinate a member of the Saudi royal family after evading security detectors by hiding a PETN-based bomb inside his body.

ka-boom

The Christmas Day bomber used nitroglycerin in a syringe, it is speculated, as the guy had the PETN "condom" strapped to his leg. The nitro would've ignited the PETN by being disturbed; as unstable as nitro is, it wouldn't have had any trouble functioning as a detonator simply by the perp jostling his leg.

The whole health issue of some surgeon packing a live bomb inside somebody who thinks the 72 virgins are right around the corner boggles the mind.

I just don't think we're going to be using Xray machines on people anytime soon. But the swab test most definitely picks up PETN from somebody who's been handling explosives and it's apparently even in their hair.

Hey, only the hairdresser knows for sure.

[LC EFA]

I was wondering a bit about oxygen, which is at least an element that's nice-to-have if you're going to blow something up. A detonation is an out-of-control, rapid burn, right? Apparently, PETN doesn't seem to require oxygen per se; according to this article, the whole idea of a bomb inside the body has already been attempted.

Most regularly formulated explosives contain the oxygen required for their detonation in the compound.

TNT for example decomposes as 2 C7H5N3O6 -> 3 N2 + 5 H2O + 7 CO + 7 C

The Christmas Day bomber used nitroglycerin in a syringe, it is speculated, as the guy had the PETN "condom" strapped to his leg. The nitro would've ignited the PETN by being disturbed; as unstable as nitro is, it wouldn't have had any trouble functioning as a detonator simply by the perp jostling his leg.

I doubt it was nitroglycerin. Desensitized to a form where you could carry it in a syringe it's useless for the purpose required.

The actual chemical it was isn't hard to figure out - but I'm not going to identify it here.

[Eupher]

I doubt it was nitroglycerin. Desensitized to a form where you could carry it in a syringe it's useless for the purpose required.

This isn't the exact source I was looking at this morning, but it's the second source (yeah, I know -- it's Slime magazine, not the best source at all) I've seen that speculated about nitro.

Link

[LC EFA]

This isn't the exact source I was looking at this morning, but it's the second source (yeah, I know -- it's Slime magazine, not the best source at all) I've seen that speculated about nitro.

Link

They're basing the use of nitroglycerin on the not-completely-accurate notion that PETN requires an explosive  initiator to start the ball rolling so to speak.

Without going into too much detail here - there are chemicals that can potentially initiate it via a chemical reaction.