Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Andrew Macdonald's
The Turner Diaries
and
Hunter
. Macdonald's
Hunter
pro-
vided a detailed description of how to mix ammonium nitrate into a bomb:
Then he bought himself a used Chevrolet pickup. With the pickup he
drove to a large feed and fertilizer store on the edge of town and bought
15 bags of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate. He would have bought
more, but 1,500 pounds was about as much as he estimated he could
manage in one load... In a rented garage he removed several five-gallon
cans of wallpaper adhesive and dozens of rolls of wallpaper from the back
of the van and replaced them with four 40 gallon plastic trash barrels... he
spent the next three hours emptying sacks of ammonium nitrate into the
barrels and stirring a fuel-oil sensitizer into the white pellets.
32
In May 1993, McVeigh ordered and received Ragnar Benson's
Homemade C-4
,
which detailed how to mix ammonium nitrate with nitromethane to build a power-
ful bomb.
33
Another point to mention in regard to building bombs is where to build them.
Ahmed Ressam trained in Al-Qaeda's Khalden Camp in Afghanistan, where he
received training in explosives construction. He was also tasked by Al-Qaeda senior
leadership to launch a VBIED attack against Los Angeles International Airport in
2000. Ressam stated that when he left the training camps and returned to Canada,
he brought with him hexamine and glycol as precursors to his bomb. He also brought
a notebook of bomb-making instructions.
34
In Canada, he was visited by the major
Al-Qaeda recruiter Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who gave him further instructions.
35
Ressam completed his bomb by stealing nitric and sulfuric acid from various fertili-
zer stores.
The capability to make explosives is greater today because of the large number
of veteran jihadists who continue to operate. Experience gained in various theaters
of the global jihad make these veterans indispensable to terror cells, especially those
that are composed of individuals who did not train in the camps. However, while
the experience of these veterans is important, it is not an absolute necessity. The
role of the Internet in regard to online bomb making has been a new research topic.
McVeigh was able to build his lethal bomb by reading a few topics in conjunction
with his military experience. Another interesting question to ask is, how many of
today's current bomb makers who have built successful devices have trained in the
terrorists' camps versus those who took the route of McVeigh?
CBRN
Although much of the focus of this chapter has been on the acquisition of con-
ventional weapons, the realm of unconventional weapons cannot be dismissed.
Terrorists have increasingly shown an interest in CBRN weapons. In 2002, an
Al-Qaeda tape was found in Afghanistan showing militants killing dogs with what
