Word: abdulmutallab
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...small way, the system did work, because screening effectively forced the alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to use a liquid chemical rather than a more basic or reliable detonator to trigger the powdered explosive that was sewn into his underwear and smuggled on board. And it turns out that pulling off such an explosion on a plane is no simple feat. "It's a bit more complicated than just putting a flame to the powder," says Jimmie Carol Oxley, the director of the Center of Excellence in Explosives Detection, Mitigation, Response and Characterization at the University of Rhode Island...
...explosive Abdulmutallab allegedly used is called pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), and it is powerful even in quantities as small as a hundredth of a pound. It comes from the same chemical family as nitroglycerin and has a long history of use in terrorist attacks. Though PETN itself is controlled, the chemicals used to make it aren't that hard to find - and Abdulmutallab or any other bombers would likely be able to obtain the explosive on the black market if they couldn't synthesize it themselves. The shoe bomber Richard Reid tried to use PETN to destroy a plane over...
...like most stable explosives it's not easy to ignite - it requires an initial explosion. Usually that would be accomplished with a detonator like a blasting cap, but that device would have almost surely shown up on any airport X-ray machine or metal detector. Instead, Abdulmutallab allegedly brought along a syringe, which could have been filled with a liquid explosive like nitroglycerin. If done correctly, the primer explosion could have set off the PETN, which might have blown a hole in the side of the plane. "It looked like he was trying to use a chemical initiation, and that...
Both the U.S. and Britain are key terrorism targets. Yet while the British barred Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from their country, the U.S. simply added his name to a list of 550,000 names and let him board a flight filled with nearly 300 other people bound for Detroit. Why? The contrasting ways the two nations dealt with the 23-year-old Nigerian engineering student before he allegedly tried to blow a Northwest/Delta airliner out of the sky on Christmas Day will make it tougher for U.S. officials to maintain that their terrorist-watch program is operating smoothly and efficiently...
...British government placed Abdulmutallab on its watch list in May after he cited a nonexistent school in his application for a student visa. "If you are on our watch list, then you do not come into this country," Alan Johnson, Britain's Home Secretary, told the BBC on Monday, Dec. 28. (See the Detroit terrorism suspect's Nigeria connections...