Police have confirmed they are now investigating the discovery of two car bombs in the West End of London.
Another Mercedes, with a bomb made up of 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, had been found outside a nightclub in Haymarket at 0130 BST.
"There was a considerable amount of fuel and gas canisters, as in the first vehicle. There was also a substantial quantity of nails," he said.
Police also found a bag covered with a blanket, possibly containing high explosives.
A leading explosives expert also mentioned that such an explosion of a propane gas tank would create a fireball the size of a house.
I was pondering if ever, what could have made the propane gas detonate and create such a fireball?
I have read up on atomized particle explosions, but I am not convinced that is it the factor that could have caused such devastation?
I have looked up the internet and found this article, probably a cause : If a highly flammable substance is atomized, or, divided into very small
particles, and large amounts of it is burned in a confined area, an explosion similar to that occurring in the cylinder of an automobile is produced.
The tiny droplets of gasoline burn in the air, and the hot gasses expand rapidly, pushing the cylinder up. Similarly, if a gallon of gasoline was
atomized and ignited in a building, it is very possible that the expanding gassed would push the walls of the building down. This phenomenon is called
an atomized particle explosion. If a person can effectively atomize a large amount of a highly flammable substance and ignite it, he could bring down
a large building, bridge, or other structure. Atomizing a large amount of gasoline, for example, can be extremely difficult, unless one has the aid of
a high explosive. If a gallon jug of gasoline was placed directly over a high explosive charge, and the charge was detonated, the gasoline would
instantly be atomized and ignited. If this occurred in a building, for example, an atomized particle explosion would surely occur. Only a small amount
of high explosive would be necessary to accomplish this feat, about 1/2 a pound of T.N.T. or 1/4 a pound of R.D.X. Also, instead of gasoline, powdered
aluminum could be used. It is necessary that a high explosive be used to atomize a flammable material, since a low-order explosion does not occur
quickly enough to atomize or ignite the flammable material.
[Edited on 30-6-2007 by tito-o-mac]JohnWW - 30-6-2007 at 02:39
There would have to be access to and sufficient mixing with oxygen, for incendiary materials like gasoline, natural gas, LPG, etc. to be explosively
detonated by self-propagating combustion, as well as heating to above the flash point of the fuel-air mixture. The "conventional" explosive (e.g. TNT,
nitroglycerin, RDX, nitrocellulose, TATP, NH4NO3, NH4ClO4, initially detonated with a heavy metal azide or fulminate set off by a current from a
timing device) packed inside the gas bottles and gasoline containers and nails etc. would probably have provided the necessary heating and (on
rupturing the gas bottle and gasoline containers) mixing with air.
The only thing worse would be if some of Lugovoi's left-over KGB-supplied polonium-210 had also been added to the mixture.Organikum - 30-6-2007 at 04:04
Every car has about 60l of petrol. Wtf?
Looks like they got the car of a roofer. Nails for roofing, LPG for soldering and petrol to drive the fucking car. Roofers beware! You are terrorists.
To set off a bomb made of petrol and LPG it needs some sophisticated methods and I have not yet encountered any working descriptions on the net how to
do this.
If this would be so easy the US army would be in for a hard time in Iraq and the rest of the world, taking in account the power which is theoretically
in just one liter of petrol. But it isn´t as we know.
Either a roofer, idiots, or a scare to destroy our last liberties. I bet the on the last,
[Edited on 30-6-2007 by Organikum]unionised - 30-6-2007 at 09:42
If there had only been one bomb then I might agree with you about the roofer.
"To set off a bomb made of petrol and LPG it needs some sophisticated methods "
A petrol bomb isn't that sophisticated.
The idea that petrol and propane are difficult to expolode seems at odds with the facts that petrol is used in engines specifically because it does
explode and that gas explosions are fairly common.markgollum - 30-6-2007 at 10:52
Bah, from the descriptions I have read it seems most probable that these "car bombs"
were useless garbage as far as doing any sort of damage.
Since when can you use a gaseous air/fuel mixture to convert bulk nails into deadly projectiles? you really can't especially if you are simply
igniting the mix.
To really get some punch out of an air/fuel mix you need to use a good HE booster on the proper mix which for propane and petrol only works within a
VERY narrow range.
The geometry of a car is completely unsuitable for this type of device and since the energy density is very low and the volume of detonating material
is very high these devices are not intentionally used for accelerating pieces of metal.
[Edited on by markgollum]tumadre - 30-6-2007 at 10:55
well the only way to know is to do it yourselfJohnWW - 30-6-2007 at 11:30
But was it really Al Qaeda or the Taliban at work, in London? Who paid for those two spanking new Mercedes cars which, being undamaged, the pigs will
presumably appropriate for their high-ranking officers to drive, and which (together with their cargos) must have cost hundreds of thousands of $s,
assuming they were not stolen? I would have thought that Al Qaeda would have been too smart for something like that not to succeed, and too suicidal
not to use suicide bombers instead, like what they do in Baghdad. It looks like another 911-style "own goal" to garner political support for the
Government.
P.S. We may never really know for sure whether Al Qaeda was behind the 3 failed car bombs (all of which were rigged in the same way, copying those
used in Iraq, but all had the same defect in the detonating mechanism) in London and Glasgow, for the simple reason that they would not want to be
made to look silly by claiming responsibility for the 3 failed attacks. However, we do know now that the immediate perpetrators were Muslim criminals,
in view of one of those caught in Glasgow screaming "Allah, Allah, Allah" as he was being arrested by a pig. So they did it in the name of and on
orders from Dog-Spelled-Backwards, and on promises of a free and premature trip to Paradise with 72 virgins as their reward for killing themselves and
as many other people as possible. But it has come out that the British Government received two weeks' warning of the attacks, including that London
and Glasgow were to be targets, but failed to act upon it, so it does look like another 9/11-style "own goal".
[Edited on 2-7-07 by JohnWW]franklyn - 30-6-2007 at 14:38
This latest car bomb in London marks a troubling trend. Since acquisition of
precursors for improvised explosives is closely monitored , the ever resourceful
urban terrorist adapts by fabricating fuel air demolitions. Producing a fireball
alone is hardly worth anyone's effort unless this occurs in an enclosed area
since most of the heat rises with the flame scarcely impacting the surroundings.
In the past ( going back years ago to germany ) acetylene had been used on
a small scale to enhance air blast in an enclosed place such as a dance club.
Improvising an effective FAE ( fuel air explosion ) is technically hard to achieve
correctly for the desired result , requiring exquisite timing between the dispersion
of combustible fuel vapor and it's ignition; a matter of milliseconds over a narrow
window of time. The percentage of fuel vapor in air must be in the explosive
range in order to produce blast overpressure. When aerosolized , a liquid fuel
will drop the temperature within the cloud to freezing as it absorbs heat from
the air , hindering it's ignition , as it occurs when you try to cold start a car.
Dispersal of a liquified gas fuel such as propane or butane will be subfreezing
although these do have a lower flash point. For this reason ethylene oxide has
been tried for use in munitions.
I recall that a member of this forum posted video of their tribulations when trying
to achieve ignition of explosively aerosolized fuel. Not as easy as it seems.
Pre-heating the fuel to increase it's vapor pressure and ignition is the answer.
BLEVE ( Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion ) is the result when a tank car
on fire ruptures from the internal pressure spewing the contents into the air.
Similarly certain munitions achieve preheating and igniton with thermite.
The vehicle in London aroused suspicion when it was observed to be emitting
vapors. Likely the preheating phase had begun. Gasoline , Propane , Butane ,
untold blended flamables and thermte are not materials that can be monitored
and the technical hurdles which do require sophisticated engineering are
surmountable. We can rely on experiencing more of this type of attack.
.Nerro - 30-6-2007 at 14:46
Gentlemen please don your tinfoil hats!
It is awfully coïncidental for all this to happen in conjunction with Gordon Brown's assumption of power isn't it?Organikum - 30-6-2007 at 20:53
Propane and gasoline are cheap and abundant. If this stuff would make feasible explosive devices for "the urban terrorist" or anybody else we would
see it every day everywhere. The fact that this just doesnt happen shows that gasoline and propane are NO feasible explosives. Point proven.
Doesn´t say that I could not make a nice bomb from the stuff as other members here could. But we are amateur scientists and no terrorists whatever
Polysam may believe. At least not now.
When the cops raided my home they found some pipes and a lot of hexamine and they immediately asked me if I intended to build bombs. Wtf? Why should I
want to blow somebody up? Is the whole world paranoid?
I am more and more convinced that the press and media at all, and the fucking politicians are doing way to much cocain, they are getting more and more
paranoid every day. Somebody really has to spice the water supply of the parlaments and the press with LSD to set things straight again.
We need less psychopharmaca and more psychodelics.
Thats what I think.
Every car a rolling bomb?
Isn´t this going overboard here?
I mean WE know that you cannot explode AN and diesel just so without some special tricks & ingredients and now we set the world on fire with some
LPG and gasoline?
I don´t get this anymore.
Sorry for the rant.
[Edited on 1-7-2007 by Organikum]tito-o-mac - 1-7-2007 at 00:06
I totally agree with you organikum. THIS ENTIRE WORLD HAS GONE PARANOID. Friggin police arresting boys playing with sparklers, and now they are
beginning to ban fireworks.. what's next? oh, being arrested for having a barbecue using a LPG gas cannister?
I guess the main idea was the detonate the high explosives and atomize the particles of the lpg(virtually imposible) to create a fire ball. I guess
the petrol was just for havok. This is extremely similar to the recent Tokyo spa gas explosion. A better sauna than expected!
[Edited on 1-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]
[Edited on 1-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]unionised - 1-7-2007 at 10:52
"Propane and gasoline are cheap and abundant. If this stuff would make feasible explosive devices for "the urban terrorist" or anybody else we would
see it every day everywhere. The fact that this just doesnt happen shows that gasoline and propane are NO feasible explosives. Point proven."
That only proves the point to people who have never heard of a petrol bomb (AKA a Molotov cocktail. ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_cocktail
I'm not saying that these are fully engineered fuel/ air bombs; just that they are very cost effective and practically impossible to ban.
If I got a good fire going round a propane cylinder then eventually the cylinder (or it's burst disk) would fail. At that point the propane would
spew out rapidly and catch fire as it did so. A big cylinder could easily produce an impressive fire ball. Not technically a detonation but not
something you want to be near. Something like this without the giggling people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0os7ECWrwtMOrganikum - 1-7-2007 at 11:41
A Molotov cocktail is no explosive device but a firestarter, a gascylinder doesn´t explode, the Hindenburg didn´t explode but burn down nicely (and
most passengers survived).
What are you doing here on this board all the time actually?evil_lurker - 1-7-2007 at 16:19
Ummmm what would happen if you got a propane cylinder, distilled the propane into a high pressure cylinder, hooked that cylinder to a high pressure
oxygen cylinder, and opened up a valve between the two and put rigged up an electric ignitor to the whole bit?12AX7 - 1-7-2007 at 17:07
If you get the ratio right, then what happens depends on the peak pressure. If the mixture can detonate rather than deflagrate, it's probably not
going to end well. Those high pressure cylinders are rated for thousands of PSI, so a mere deflegration, especially starting from one end (i.e., more
burn time as opposed to burning from the center), may not cause enough pressure to explode one.
Timnitro-genes - 1-7-2007 at 17:17
Making a true fuel-air-explosive (detonating fuel cloud) out of gasoline or a propane tank is next to impossible and would require more exotic fuels
and/or additives to work reliably. To do so as an amateur you would need months of extensive experimentation and a lot of know-how to come up with
something that actually works reliably.
BLEVE's by rupturing gas tanks can look pretty intimidating, though the overpressures produced are too low to be of any real threat, especially in the
open. Adding nails sounds for this reason more like a bad episode of MacGyver than a terrorist attack. Maybe if someone would have felt the need to
crawl inside the trunk and hug the propane tank at the time it "detonated" it would have made a casualty.
Still wondering if the propane mentioned by the media could have actually been propane-N2O, oxy-acetylene or oxy-MAPP gas, without a doubt it is all
the same to them...
[Edited on by nitro-genes]tito-o-mac - 1-7-2007 at 20:04
I looked up the video and the results were devastating. Buildings within 200m of the blast radius were incinerated! " LPG is so flammable, a
detonation of one railcar can cause second-degree burns more than a mile away. " "Detonating one LPG railcar can cause second-degree burns more than a
mile away. A terrorist who explodes 18 LPG tank cars would unleash as much energy as the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, according
to federal reports. "
Worse than I thought so!
Anyway,The Straits Times, Monday 2 July,2007 reported:"On a slightly encouraging note, it is clear that those who perpetrated the two attacks were not
very sophisticated. They do not appear to have high explosives. Instead, the attacks relied on a combination of large quantities of petrol and gas
canisters, which could have been triggered of by a small explosive device. The aim was to create a masive fireball which would incinerate everything
in sight, very similar to the spectacular "special effects" used in mnay Hollywood movies. But. although the technology is simple and the materials
are both readily available and difficult to control(since they are in common daily use), exploding such incendiary devices is not as easy as it
sounds. The highly violatile materials also need to be in the right amounts and the mixture of fuel and oxygen must be correct for a big fireball to
develop." Maybe a deodorant can is one such simple example. It is aerosol, and is highly flammable. From there, one can think of more ideas to conduct
an experiment.
BTW,Organikum,"What are you doing here on this board all the time actually?", is that I never logout, and I live in asia, so the timeline is
diferent...
[Edited on 2-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]tito-o-mac - 2-7-2007 at 00:19
I get the point Unionised. The video propane vs. shotgun is probably the sort of thing those terrorists wanted, exept they had many propane tanks and
loads of petrol. The idea is too set the propane tank on fire first(but not detonate it!), without allowing any explosion to occur. The ignition has
to be done with the petrol. I think the terrorists thought the petrol was enough to set off the initial ignition and than the detonation, while
triggered with the cellphone detonator. The reason why the police found the two phonecalls, were one, to set off a fire with a small amount of petrol,
and the second phonecall, was probably to ignite the second load of petrol (most likely significantly larger than a first), to break the casing of the
cylinder, allowing the pressurised propane gases to quickly escape. But the second petrol had not enough time to rupture the casing of the cylinder.
If only a little ammonium nitrate was attached to each cylinder and detonated, only than would they produce a hell of a fireball. Even an axe could
have done it. Point proven(though I'm not to sure). If anyone believes it is incorrect, than I suggest you go on ahead and prove it! I would like to
here from your opinions. Nevertheless, M15 has the final verdict!
The car that crashed into the airport was rather a sily idea. They even forgot to survey to site firs. Even driving around aimlessly knocking down
people could have resulted in more casualties than that burning molitov cocktail!
[Edited on 2-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]
[Edited on 2-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]Organikum - 2-7-2007 at 01:01
The point is as we know here that this just doesnt work.
And yes, there is a bunch of wannabee terrorists out there. Muslims, highschool kids, idiots, sociopaths of any kind. Thats nothing new.
Luckily they are pretty uneducated and inept.
And you will not find me explaining and discussing HOW one could get things like this working, not me and not those others who have a clue. So these
musings will be left to those who don´t know and thats good this way.
PS: And to those who never get it right, it is a COMBUSTION engine in your car not an EXPLOSION engine. Got it? The gasoline does not explode but
burns in a controlled manner. Explosion of the fuel is called "knocking" and is to be avoided by all means as it ruins the motor.
[Edited on 2-7-2007 by Organikum]tito-o-mac - 2-7-2007 at 02:13
Here we have it, a closed chapter. As Organikum has said it, neither of us should want to know the theory behind such a unfeasible feat, nor shall we
continue the endless arguement on the theories, the end remains a mystery no one will know...
[Edited on 2-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]Organikum - 2-7-2007 at 03:19
I tell you a story from a long long time ago, before the internet and before electronics and plans were so easily available. I am an old fart,
Long long ago Organikum was member of some civil resistance against nuclear armament and such things. And we did not only demonstrate and hold hands.
No, no. For special occasions we resorted to other means of direct action and that with good success.
Then we sat together, mostly students and pupils and workers from social professions, almost nobody skilled in something useful and know what? We came
up with many ideas in a short time. We spent hours and hours not searching for ideas to wreck havok but to work out ways to do our thing WITHOUT
hurting anybody, as violence against people, causing harm to somebody not involved was completely out of question.
It is so easy to flatten a pylon, but it is hard to figure out how to do it in a way which makes sure nobody gets hurt, no traffic lights go out
during rush hour, no hospitals are cut off etc. And our tools were no explosives but not more then hacksaws and stuff. Thats enough.
And now we have some idiots who want exactly this:
Hurting as many people as any possible.
And they are not able to get anybody?
But somebody gave them plans for how to make a wireless ignition from a mobile.
And somebody gave them plans to make a bomb from propane and gasoline which does not work.
And they went and did it.
And got immedeately discovered, their names are known and they are hunted down now.
Something stinks to heaven here.
This is not about politics.
This is about my youth, about not working explosive devices and about our freedom which is on stake.
regards
/ORG
PS: An industrial society is not to protect. An industrial society is always vulnerable. People who spend their time searching and publishing ways how
to do big damage to a country and the people are criminal minds who are in dire need of some professional help preferably in a closed institution.
[Edited on 2-7-2007 by Organikum]Boomer - 3-7-2007 at 04:49
Did someone verify the "second degree burns from over a mile away" statement? Sounds like media hype, but wait!
I just calculated the energy of 18 railcars each holding 70 metric tons of LPG (at approx. 85 tons total per railcar). Came up with 1260 tons. At
42.000 kJ/kg for LPG and 4000 for TNT, that's 13 kilotons QED.
We better look out for Bin Laden trying to get a drivers licence, no need to learn flying a jet.Organikum - 3-7-2007 at 06:21
Quote:
Originally posted by Boomer
.....
We better look out for Bin Laden trying to get a drivers licence, no need to learn flying a jet.
Good one.
Reminds me somehow on the old german joke (which brought one into a concentration camp instantly in these bad days): "Der Führer war ein armes
Schwein, er hatte keinen Führerschein!"
Referring to the fact that Adolf Hitler ("Der Führer") had no driverslicence which in german aciidentially is called "Führerschein".
Completely off topic. Sorry.tito-o-mac - 3-7-2007 at 06:37
The head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command said, "It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or
loss of life."[3] However, the device could not have detonated, because it lacked an oxidizer, according to a columnist for The Register (UK).[12]
This information may have originated from an interview of former CIA counter-terrorism officer Larry Johnson, conducted by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC on
29 June. [13]
Case closed long time ago
[Edited on 4-7-2007 by tito-o-mac]nitro-genes - 3-7-2007 at 09:44
Hmm, "dark avenger.bat" sounds exciting, but no thanks. Lol, even my little sister can do better than that...
Comparing a fuel depot or train with an atombomb is just blatant sensationalism. The average american cornfield may contain more than ten times that
amount of energy, though nobody minds walking trough it right?
[Edited on by nitro-genes]JohnWW - 3-7-2007 at 12:14
GLASGOW, Scotland - The fast-moving investigation into failed car bombings in Glasgow and London has swept up at least six physicians and a medical
student, officials said Tuesday, including a doctor seized at an Australian airport with a one-way ticket. Many of the men had roots outside Britain
— with ties to Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and India — and worked together at hospitals in Scotland or England, officials said.
None of the plotters arrested so far is named on U.S. terror watch lists that identify potential suspects, according to a senior American
counterterror official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Staff at Glasgow's Royal Alexandra Hospital said Tuesday the suspect badly burned in the failed attack on Glasgow airport was Khalid Ahmed, a Lebanese
doctor who both worked there — as did the Iraqi arrested with him — and was being treated there under police guard. One of the doctors from India,
27-year-old Muhammad Haneef, was arrested late Monday at the international airport in the Australian city of Brisbane, the Australian attorney general
said.
Haneef, who was being held under counterterrorism laws, worked in 2005 at Halton Hospital in England, hospital spokesman Mark Shone said. A
26-year-old man arrested Saturday in Liverpool also practiced there, Shone said. "The doctor was regarded by the hospital as, in many senses, a model
citizen — excellent references and so on," said Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. Police in Glasgow said two more men — aged 25 and 28 — were
arrested Sunday in residences at Glasgow's Royal Alexandra Hospital, where staff identified them as a junior doctor and a medical student.
Amid increased security at British airports, train stations and on city streets, two men attempting to buy gas canisters at an industrial estate were
arrested in Blackburn, northern England, under anti-terrorism laws. Police said it was too early to determine if the men were linked to the London and
Glasgow attacks. Authorities said police searched at least 19 locations at a time of already high vigilance before the anniversary of the suicide
bombings in London that killed 52 people on July 7, 2005.
In the latest attacks, two car bombs failed to explode in central London on Friday, and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into
the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and then set it on fire Saturday. The British government security official said investigators were
working on one theory that the same people may have driven the explosives-laden cars into London and the blazing SUV in Glasgow.
Bomb experts carried out a second controlled explosion on a car at the Royal Alexandra Hospital hospital Monday, after a similar blast Sunday. Police
said the car was linked to the investigation, but no explosives were found. Authorities identified Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the
Glasgow hospital, as the other man arrested at the airport.
A man arrested late Saturday on a highway in central England was also a physician, Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha, police said. A Jordanian official
said Asha was of Palestinian descent and carried a Jordanian passport. Azmi Mahafzah, Asha's instructor at the University of Jordan medical school,
said he knew Asha during his studies and training from 1998 to 2004. "I didn't even have the impression that he was religious," he told The Associated
Press. "He is not a fanatic type of person." The family of Asha's wife, Marwa, who British authorities said was also arrested, denied she had links to
terrorism. "Marwa is a very educated person and she read many British novels to know England better, a country she liked so much," her father, Yunis
Da'na, told The Associated Press in Jordan.
Police were also investigating an attack on an Asian news agent early Tuesday in Glasgow, in which a car was rammed into the shop and caught fire or
set ablaze, and the torching of a real estate office next to a mosque near Edinburgh on Monday. Officers have yet to establish if either attack was
racially motivated, but Osama Saeed, the Muslim Association of Britain's Scottish spokesman, said tension was increasing.
[Edited on 4-7-07 by JohnWW]franklyn - 3-7-2007 at 14:43
Very large natural gas explosions have been ( fortunately ) rarer than
incidents of large conventional explosives such as that Thiokol plant
that made Ammonium perchlorate just two decades back. Just a year
later , a gas pipe in Siberia was breached and it vented uncontrolled
for much of the day. In the cold with gas being heavier than air and
with little if any wind , explosive concentration spread out many miles
over a wide area until it found a point of ignition. The descriptions
compared it to an atomic blast. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,957976-3,00...
The eyewitness reports mention blue-white light, almost as bright as the sun, which rules out a methane/air explosion as it can't produce temperatures
high enough. I find it highly unlikely for someone to make up the blue-white light observation in 1908, when nuclear explosions were totally unknown.
The blast patterns suggest a far smaller and energy dense object as the cause as well. I found the most plausible to envision a rather brittle astroid
hitting the dense earth atmosphere upon which it would disintegrate into a fine dust, instantly transmitting it's kinetic energy to the surrounding
air in the form of heat and pressure.
The connection to terrorism kind of eludes me though. (Although I agree this
much more interesting stuff than the science-fiction stories in the newspapers lately)
[Edited on by nitro-genes]franklyn - 3-7-2007 at 21:04
This is the Energetic Materials subforum and this thread ( for the most part )
explores the range of fuel / air combustion. That this has appeal in
unconventional warfare is to me a side issue that more properly belongs in
Legal and Societal Issues.
Mahatma Gandhi , and Martin Luther King instigated political change without
invoking violence, yet both ended up victimized by violence. If prospective
" terrorists " desire to sacrifice themselves for their cause , given that their
end can be the same , which is the more honorable path ?
The events I related from memory before are detailed here below.
The Morton Thiokol plant explosion is often seen on television and is
well known though there was only one casualty. Such was not the case
in this more recent Ammonium Nitrate storage warehouse detonation.
Excerpted from pg 6 of this United Nations document _ http://www.unece.org/env/documents/2002/cep/ac.10/cep.ac.10....
In 2001, a huge explosion ripped through a warehouse in which granular
ammonium nitrate was stored at the AZF fertiliser factory in an industrial zone
on the outskirts of Toulouse, France, leaving a 50 m diameter crater more than
10 m deep. Thirty-one people were reported dead, including some outside the
plant, and 2,442 were injured. More than 500 homes were made uninhabitable
and almost 11 000 pupils were kept at home after some 85 schools and colleges
were damaged. Windows in the city centre 3 km away were blown out.
Comparatively Gas / Air explosions are at least equivalent to that of
conventional explosives in the scope of their general destuctiveness.
Excerpted from this Health and Safety Executive publication _ http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/hid/spc/spctg26.pdf
1989 Siberia, Russia – Engineers in charge of an LPG pipeline noticed
a sudden drop in pressure at the pumping end of the pipeline. It had
been reported that there had been leaking for several days and that a
heavy smell of gas had been reported a few hours before the
explosions and fire. Instead of investigating the trouble, engineers
responded by increasing the pumping rate in order to maintain the
required pressure in the pipeline. The actual leakage point was about
890 miles down stream between two towns, where the pipeline was
installed about ½ mile away from the side of a railway. Some hours
later, two passenger trains, travelling in opposite directions approached
the area. Their turbulence mixed up LPG mist and vapour with the
overlying air to form a flammable cloud section. One or the other train
sparked off the cloud. Two explosions took place in quick succession
followed by a wall of fire that was about 1 mile wide, which raced down
the railroad tracks in both directions. 462 people killed and 706
injured.
In 1978 Tarragona Spain
A tanker truck overturned ejecting Propylene aerosol onto a crowded
picnic ground , then ignited , incinerating everything within sight.
( I can tell you they still talk about this one there ) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946862,00.h...
Very true , they must be toning it down.
Reminds me of the monks who self immolated
to protest the Vietnam War.
nitro-genes - 4-7-2007 at 01:16
"Why, it's almost as if suicide bombing was a fairly dumb tactic. The 7/7 bombers seem to have been one of very few terror groups in the UK who were
competent enough to make explosives and weren't under plod/spook surveillance, and now they're all dead..."
Hahaha, good one!
Natural selection at work it seems...Eclectic - 4-7-2007 at 04:57
Eradicating "terror" one suicide bomber at a time.tito-o-mac - 6-7-2007 at 06:27
NEUROLOGIST TERRORISTS? They'd rather have their brains undergo surgery than planning to blow people up!tito-o-mac - 6-7-2007 at 08:14
To recap: an exceptionally incompetent group of troublemakers ( it would be
unseemly charitable to call them terrorists ) attempted and failed to pull off
what must be the most pathetic terror plot ever. Even if this clusterfuck could
have succeded it would have been difficult to distinguish from a minor accident.
These people had no actual explosives , and were apparently too lazy and
ignorant to learn how to make them. Real terrorists are hard to come by , so
clowns and stooges with harebrained schemes end up doing the bin Laden
perp walk. The car containing the device was observed moving erratically and
abandoned by its driver after crashing it , then running off , as would a true
professional . You and I are more likely to have been killed accidentally by his
lousy driving than intentionally by this Beavis and Butthead car bomb.
Apparently in their warped frenzy to do harm the conspirators believed they
could enhance the intended fireball and augment the imaginary carnage by
including nails inside the car. Of course if these were propelled with any vigor
at all they would end up perforating the car and nothing more. If there are
nails flying through the air I would be very grateful to have a car between
the flying nails and myself , which these " terrorists " thoughtfully provided.
One can sympathize with bomb disposal technicians who must be feeling very
slighted , having spent considerable time and effort training and dedicated
their working life to the disposal of dangerous explosive artifacts , only to be
faced now with the imminent threat of exploding party poppers. I would be
seriously pissed too.
.tito-o-mac - 7-7-2007 at 00:29
" You and I are more likely to have been killed accidentally by his
lousy driving than intentionally by this Beavis and Butthead car bomb."
That's funnyJohnWW - 8-7-2007 at 21:50
The most recent news on them said that one of the two Muslim doctors arrested at Glasgow Airport has been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions
in public places in respect of both the London and Glasgow failed car bombs, while the other doctor arrested at Glasgow Airport is still too ill with
burns to be charged or appear in a Court. Attempted arson is also a likely charge. The offense, if they are convicted of it, can carry up to a life
sentence. There is no word of any charges being brought against the other 5 Muslim doctors and medical technicians detained in England and Scotland,
or the one detained in Queensland, Australia. These latter have now been detained without charges for a week - something which would be quite
unacceptable in many other countries including mine.tito-o-mac - 9-7-2007 at 07:17
Those stupid fools must have probably read it from the anarchist crap or something else.quicksilver - 9-7-2007 at 10:00
These are educated (theoretically) individuals.....but they put together absolute crap! Can you imagine them working on an injury you have?
"Ahhh, I see we have a broken femur from the x-ray here...." "Let's go stone some women and think this over....."Rosco Bodine - 9-7-2007 at 10:11
Another fine testimonial concerning the level of intellect to which radical islam would appeal and have influence ....
on the one hand , absent such a contaminant to the intellect you have a brain surgeon , a medical doctor ....
someone operating on a higher than average plane mentally in the normal course of daily business .
Season that mind with the superstitious fanatacism
and allure which only a false religion and death cult could provide and what is the product of that defiled and devalued and diminished , polluted
mind ,
but another wasted life of a previously rational person
devolved into another braindead jihadi ....yes another regular Einstein and fiery emmisary of the wahabi way ,
the damn primitives who are a notch below a cannibal
since at least for them , they never knew any better .
Islam is the closest thing to a computer virus for the human mind , that the world has ever seen . And the crash of all reasoning into murderous
chaos seems to be
the predictable consequence of what absolutely is a
contagious mental disease .DrP - 10-7-2007 at 00:38
The ring leader had clained asylum here a few years ago! BS - How many of the other 10's of thousands of so called asylum seekers are here to to blow
things up? If it's half a percent then thats a very big problem. Thankfully these 4 scum have been caught though. This will however cost the tax
payer thousands now to keep them in a luxury
cell for life so we don't breach their human rights.tito-o-mac - 10-7-2007 at 01:45
They called these cars "packed with explosives"! That is utterly nonsense! How could they ever call the flaming car which rammed into Glasgow Airport
a car bomb? The media must kicking up some sort of sandstorm here. These people are doctors or surgeons, looks like hiring highly intellectual people
may not work all the time. They're probably rich enough to purchase these spanking new Mercedes, then at least conserve their money on something else,
instead of wasting your money on an attempt to blow something up!unionised - 10-7-2007 at 08:54
"Islam is the closest thing to a computer virus for the human mind , that the world has ever seen . And the crash of all reasoning into murderous
chaos seems to be
the predictable consequence of what absolutely is a
contagious mental disease . "
It's not Islam that the problem, it's religion because all religions seem to rely on the suspension of reason.
While we are at it it makes no sense to assume that all imigrants (asylum seekers or otherwise) are potential terrorists any more than it makes sense
to assume that all the "natives" of a country are going to be nice. Apart from anything else that sort of extrapolation is poor science. It's also
exactly the sort of sloppy thinking that religion encourages.Polverone - 10-7-2007 at 11:44
Guess what kind of forbidden thread this appears to be transforming into.
(Although I agree this
much more interesting stuff than the science-fiction stories in the newspapers lately)