Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Simultaneity and secondary devices having been used with IEDs, and suicide
bombers have also been used with VBIED attacks. Pioneered by the PIRA, Al-Qaeda,
adding the suicide element, has elevated this tactic to deadly effect. On August 7,
1998, Al-Qaeda, borrowing from the PIRA's playbook regarding simultaneity, con-
ducted two suicide VBIED attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 224 people and wounded 5000. The Nairobi
bomb consisted of close to 2000 pounds of TNT and ammonium nitrate along with
aluminum powder. Oxygen and acetylene tanks were included in the payload. The
Tanzania bomb was wired in a similar manner. The Bali bombings in October 2002
were notable for its use of an initial explosion designed to drive a large number of
victims into a “kill zone,” where they would be cut down by a second blast.
AQAP bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri developed an IED that was inserted into
the anal crevice of his brother Abdullah in an attempt to kill the Saudi Arabian
Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef. The bomb detonated, kill-
ing Abdullah, but not Prince Nayef. Asiri was also believed to be the mastermind
behind the October 2010 AQAP airline plot in which explosive devices were placed
inside printer cartridges.
The hijacking of the 9/11 airliners evolved into what it became after a number
of other attacks targeted commercial aviation. Hijacking became the favored tactic
of terrorist groups starting in the late 1960s. In the 1980s, the Libyans were notable
for finding ways to blow aircraft from the sky. In 1988, Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed
Al Megrahi placed an explosive device hidden inside a RT-SF 16 BomBeat radio
cassette player inside a suitcase that found its way into the luggage hold of Pan Am
Flight 103. The device, consisting of PETN, RDX, and Semtex, exploded over
Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people onboard, along with 11 people on the
ground. The Libyans struck again in a similar vein in September 1989, when a
bomb placed in the forward cargo hold of a Union de Transportes Aeriens (UTA)
Flight 772 flying from Congo to Paris exploded over the Sahara Desert, killing all
170 onboard including the wife of the American ambassador to Chad.
New twists in targeting commercial airliners were on display on Christmas Eve
1994 when four members of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group boarded Air France
Flight 8969 at Houari Boumediene Airport in Algiers dressed in Air Algerie uni-
forms. The hijackers immediately killed an Algerian policeman and a Vietnamese
diplomat. They killed another French citizen before the plane was allowed to leave
the airport and fly to Marseille, France.
Th e Bo Jin k A Pl o T
Ramzi Yousef, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, built upon the
actions of the Libyans and worked at devising new methods to blow commer-
cial airliners from the sky. Whereas the Libyans used radio cassette players in
suitcases, Yousef looked to use liquid explosives using nitroglycerin to blow up
