UPDATE on Al Qaeda’s Dud Bombs From Yemen
By Larry Johnson on October 31, 2010 at 2:37 PM in Current Affairs
The Islamic extremists in Yemen who are claiming the label of Al Qaeda certainly deserve an A for effort and imagination, but continue to receive an F for execution. These guys are turning out to be the Wile E. Coyote of terrorists. So far they succeeded in torching the balls of Abdulmutallab (i.e., December 2009′s Underwear Pants bomber), dispatched a poorly trained operative to NYC who failed to follow instructions in building a bomb that failed to detonate in Times Square and now failed in their creative attempt to send explosives overseas via FED EX/UPS. Which slogan had more appeal? “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight?” or “What can Brown do for you?”
In any event I’ve learned some interesting facts. Most important is the role played by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis clearly had advanced knowledge of the packages and alerted British intelligence officers. British intelligence in turn alerted British Airport security who tried and failed to find the devices. I am by a source familiar with the investigation that the Brits initally failed to locate the explosives in the toner cartridge. They employed two of the procedures currently accepted as appropriate for examining cargo–visual inspection and dogs. Both failed to find any explosives. The Brits went back to the Saudis and the Saudis insisted the info was accurate. The Brits made another try and this time located the altered toner cartridge.
We wll have to wait for the Lab report to find out if the devices were actually viable. You can view pictures of the device here. PETN in a dry form can be detonated with a spark. A buddy of mine, who is an explosives expert, looked at the photos on line and believes the bomb builder did not understand how close he needed to place the wires in order to generate a spark.
Here’s another puzzling aspect about this effort–some reports indicate a cell phone was attached to the toner cartridge, which would allegedly have provided the means to initiate the explosive. Okay, how well does your cell phone work at 15000 feet? It doesn’t. Perhaps this Al Qaeda group watch Harrison Ford’s movie when he was on board Air Force One, hiding from terrorists and managed to use his daughter’s cell phone 30,000 feet above Uzbekistan. News flash for Al Qaeda–just because Hollywood does it does not make it true. Hell, I can’t get a cell phone to work at my home in Bethesda and I’m on the ground.
One of the biggest challenges for someone who wants to send a bomb using overnight mail is you can never reliably know where it is once it leaves your hands. Building a reliable, effective package bomb is not impossible for someone who has been trained. A graduate of Indianhead, MD should be able to do it with no problem. That tells me that these guys in Yemen really are not very advanced and don’t have great skill. I have written it before and will write it again–DESIRE DOES NOT EQUAL CAPABILITY.
The real damage in this event is that important intelligence source may have been blown. The Saudis alert to the Brits essentially let the cat out of the bagg–the Saudis had someone on the inside of this Yemeni terrorist cell. While it is always possible that this was disinformation intended to disguise and protect the real source, I doubt it. This means this source is not likely to provide any more information going forward. Real time, accurate intelligence is rare. It should not be the foundation of our aviation security system. It is like relying on luck at a Casino. You need luck to win, but if that is all you have you will wind up a loser.
This event also should be the ultimate wake up call for our inadequate cargo inspection program. The only reliable system to detect a bomb in cargo is the Computer Aided Tomography scan. But this is not being used at all for packages being sent to the United States from overseas. There is a clear vulnerability.
For the terrorists this event will have an unwelcome consequence (unwelcome that is from their point of view)–pressure to kill, capture and disrupt this group has now been escalated significantly and Yemeni authorities will have little choice but help destroy this folks. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has opened a proverbial can of whoop ass on itself.
DOUBLE UPDATE:
Check out this picture:
Notice, first, that the shipper was FEDEX. Second, there were a variety of items in the box. The Saudis turned over to the Brits the exact tracking number of the box. Otherwise, authorities would not have detected the bomb. If this box had gone thru a bomb detection CAT scan system, it is highly likely that the device would have been detected. However, there is no requirement in palce for such an inspection. In other words, without the Saudis this would have probably been delivered to its destination. Would it have exploded? Probably not. But that does not mean this band of terrorist, although not very competent, can be ignored. Left alone they might eventually figure out how to do something right.
by Ronald Scott
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