This may be veering from GQ into something else…
What difference does it make it it was Al Qaeda sympathizers, PETA, Team Coco, the Free Republicans or the sodding Teamsters?
Is it somehow less “terrifying” if the bomb was planted by a nutter?
Yeah. Nutters in general tend not to be very effective over time. Organized, sane people committed to fomenting atrocities tend to do a better job. (Not always, though.)
Update: Suspect arrested.
As noted, this approach (car, fire, propane) seems to be favoured by people who may or may not have al Qaeda connections (there have been attempts like this in London, Glasgow, and now the US by people with similar connections) - I tend to the theory that these are enthusiastic amateurs with internet access rather than trained terrorists, the attempts are so poor and incomplete.
Unless you can disable the safety valve and heat the cylinder significantly for an extended period of time, you will not get an explosion - it is really difficult to do. And ANFO explosives need a real detonation to get going, so a footlocker full (with no fuel oil added) is pointless. The 7/7 bombers in London had far more success with chapatti flour and hydrogen peroxide.
It may be that the disruption of training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan has impacted the ability of al Qaeda to prepare, train and execute sophisticated attacks. Certainly the recent attacks in Mumbai, Pakistan and Kabul have tended to be based around a suicide squad armed with conventional weapons and grenades trying to sow confusion and killing for as long as possible before dying, rather than a big strike. This could be a result of better surveillance/bomb detection, reduced access to sophisticated explosives, and weaked communications/leadership/training.
Si
It’s hard to tell at this point if the guy had any international connections or not. But he didn’t know what he was doing and the counterterrorosim people are saying Al Qaeda, or someone with their training, would have done a better job.
Isn’t it also the case that law enforcement agencies are unlikely to want to completely downplay the threat posed by the device in case it would somehow impact their ability to seek the maximum possible sentence for this clown?
Not as of this morning:
Not to mention it could somehow impact their ability to seek the maximum possible funding for their agencies [not saying every civil servant is always this cynical, but especially around issues like terrorism where the public’s brain functions tend to fail, it’s worth keeping the cynical view in mind]
I was talking about connections to any overseas terrorist groups, not his immigration status. But since he was in Pakistan for three to four months last year it is possible he has those connections.
Then again, at the moment Shahzad is saying he acted alone.
I think what Marley23 is saying is that we do not yet know whether he had assistance from any overseas parties.
Anyone who rad accounts of the Oklahoma bombing knows that you have to add diesel fuel to fertilizer to get an explosive mix.(IIRC then you need a serious blasting cap to make it explode. Even a hammer won’t set off that stuff). The guy was pretty amateurish. Fireworks aren’t going to make a propane tank explode, and a bit of thinking would have figured out how to make them set off a fire in a puddle of leaking gasoline to get the whole thing started. (Invert the plastic gas can onto a rag before exiting the vehicle.
Sounds like ANYONE who read the news or watches MacGyver or Mythbusters could have dreamed up a more effective bomb. I say this guy was not really connected to any authentic terrorist group with training camps. More likely the Pakistani-immigrant equivalent of a redneck with a temper and no brain.
Specifically, you need ammonium nitrate to make it work. Sounds like this guy was trying to blow up the world with turds.
Now the news is reporting related arrests in Pakistan.
Hmmm, it never occurred to me the guy would be so stupid as to think “fertilizer” meant a big bag of sheep manure. Maybe it was way cheaper at the Walmart Garden Center than the nitrate stuff.
Ya, the good ammonium nitrate, not the cheap dilute fertilizer that’s 80% filler.
I wonder if there is a bit of a thing going on in Pakistan, where radicalised western muslims (with money) get taken to “Training Camps” believing that they are run by al Qaeda, where in fact they are relieved of their money, given the chance to run about with an AK47 for a few weeks, and told to stick propane tanks and petrol in a car, light the blue touchpaper and stand well clear (some more sophisticated operations may spring for a cellphone trigger, but that may be too technical).
In other words, there is an impression in the mind of the perpetrator that they are doing something for al Qaeda, but in fact they are the victim of a pretty simple con-job that leaves them with no useful skills whatsoever, and leads to these pretty pointless and ineffectual operations.
Compare this to the growing threat in Northern Ireland, where splinter republican groups (Real IRA, Continuity IRA) have picked up former IRA members disaffected with the peace process, and whose car-bomb expertise has increased significantly over the last few months (i.e. they do actually go boom). Admittedly, there are significant stocks of explosives still available to such groups that al Qaeda wannabes in western nations don’t have, but a serious terrorist cell should be able to get hold of some real explosives to kick off a bomb.
Si
Hello everyone. This is my first post on the SDMB.
To answer your question. No, of course this “bomb” was not credible, for all the reasons stated above. Nobody who had allegedly been in Pakistan training with people who make some very credible bombs and supposedly being in contact with them while preparing this “bomb” would have created anything like this. It is a complete joke, from the fertilizer to the firecrackers.
This guy is a complete patsy. He is an unwitting pawn in a game to create fear among the people in the US which they translates into support for the “War on Terror”. The underpants bomber and the shoe bomber may also be in this category. This is an old false flag game which is well understood by many people outside of the US. Usually, the perps make sure that people die to enhance the effect. Thankfully, in the US, people can be spooked so easily that that is not even necessary.
People who want to understand how this works should read about Operation Northwoods.
For a false-flag operation to be successful, it needs to be credible and either successful to some degree or nearly so - which this wasn’t, on any count. So I think that discounts a false-flag operation.
I agree that the perpetrator was a complete amateur with no skills. The only question is whether he operated completely alone, or believed he was operating with the support of a militant organisation from Pakistan. If he acted alone, he was stupid. If not, then he was conned by people with no skills to give him, or the al Qaeda training programs have been so disrupted that they are basically ineffectual.
As for the shoe bomber and the underpants bomber - these were both credible, nearly successful, but badly executed. In both cases, the bomber had got on to a plane with enough real explosives to possibly (this is still unclear to me) seriously damage the airframe/controls, but failed to detonate them properly. They also had planning, support and training (they didn’t get explosives and tickets on their own) - things could easily have gone very differently.
Si
Do you have any evidence for this claim, in this case, besides wild speculation?
pdts
Maybe I’m showing my paranoia, but couldn’t these recent near tragedies be designed to cover up a much bigger, much better planned event? Also (I just thought of this) would it be possible for overseas hackers to infiltrate the hidden camera in Times Square (or any other area) and pick out a good spot, leaving one less variable to go wrong? Or am I overthinking this?
You are over thinking. This was a disgruntled young man whose life fell apart, who was either tricked or just stupid and made a bomb that was the equivalent of what you would make if you had only heard a basic overview of what a real bomb uses. There is no need, at this point, to read into this any grand, Machiavellian scheme.