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London bombers used everyday materials--US police
04 Aug 2005 10:09:20 GMT
Source: Reuters
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NEW YORK/LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Bombs used by four suicide attackers to kill 52 people in London were made from simple ingredients such as hair bleach, and three of them were probably set off by cellphones, New York's police chief said. The homemade devices used on July 7 were stored in a commercial refrigerator in an apartment in northern England and shipped in coolers to a station outside London where the bombers took a train to the capital, Raymond Kelly said. "Initially it was thought that perhaps the materials were high-end military explosives that were smuggled, but it turns out not to be the case," Kelly told a briefing of security chiefs from large New York companies on Wednesday, according to U.S. media reports. "It's more like these terrorists went to a hardware store or some beauty supply store." The briefing, partly based on information obtained by New York officers sent to London to monitor the police inquiry, provides the first detailed account of the explosives and methods used by the London bombers. British police say four British Muslims killed themselves and 52 other people with bombs on three underground trains and a bus. Exactly two weeks later, police say, four men failed in a similar attempt when their bombs did not detonate. Britain's anti-terrorist branch would not confirm the U.S reports and have previously said details about the explosives could be an important part of their probe. Officers indicated they were unhappy with the U.S. revelations. "It's not something that we would normally want to do," Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter of the British Transport Police told BBC Radio. "That's a matter for them." U.S. officials, who said the British had given them clearance to release the information, told the briefing the bombers used a volatile peroxide-based explosive called HMDT, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine. This can be made from simple ingredients such as hair bleach, which contains hydrogen peroxide, citric acid, and heat tablets, sometimes used by the military to cook food. "The recipe to make a bomb is unfortunately as available on the Internet as a recipe for meatloaf," Kelly was quoted as saying by the New York Times. Investigators believe the three bombs which exploded on the underground trains were detonated using mobile phones, with alarms set to 8:50 a.m., the U.S. reports said. The fourth bomb on the bus exploded almost an hour later. The bombers who botched similar attacks on London on July 21 had similar devices, but their detonators were hand-activated not timed, the U.S. officials revealed. Michael Sheehan, New York's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, added he was worried that the British bombers had links to groups in his city. "We know those same types of organizations that they're affiliated with are very much present in New York City," he said. "That's something we're studying very, very carefully ... This could happen here."
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