London bombs 'set off by mobiles'

[DoYouEverWonder]

4 August 2005

The bombs that killed 56 people in London on 7 July were probably detonated using mobile phones, New York police officials have said.

They were made in Leeds from household chemicals like hair bleach and stored in a powerful refrigerator, they said.

<snip>

The bombs were transported to the outskirts of London in drink coolers stashed in the boot of two cars and detonated by mobile phones that had alarms set to 0850 BST, the officials added.

Deputy commissioner of counter-terrorism Michael Sheehan said: "In the flophouse where this was built in Leeds, they had commercial grade refrigerators to keep the materials cool."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4744211.stm


This article raises more questions then answers.

First, if the bombs were set off by mobile phones, then why use suicide bombers? Where some of the victims ID'd has bombers by mistake? Or did something screw up and the bombers became victims by mistake?

Second, since I failed chemistry in HS, why did they need commercial grade refrigerators to keep the materials cool?

[Taxloss]

1. "Set off by mobiles" does not necessarily mean "set off by

remote control" or even "set off by timer" - just that the trigger was attached to a mobile phone, which was used as the interface to trigger the bombs.

[Frederik]

10. But would mobile phones

be an obvious choice if you were to sett off bombs in an underground tunnell? I can't remember if I've used a mobile phone on the London Tube, but they generally don't work in underground tunnells.

On edit: I see from the AP story that they suspect the phones had their alarms set at 8:50, which makes more sense.

[ET Awful]

2. Well . . .

There is a possibility that those who carried the bombs thought they were going to place the bomb and leave, and weren't told they wouldn't be coming back.

As to the refrigerators, perhaps they are referred to as such simply because of the size, after all, your typical refrigerator would fill up fairly quickly. My guess as to why it needed to be refrigerated is the stability of the explosive. Perhaps it remains extremely stable at low temperatures but is highly volatile at higher temperatures.

Just a few guesses.

[PaulaFarrell]

3. The question I have is

Why are New York police officials making comments like this? Where did they get their so-called information? One of the bombs exploded in one of the deepest underground tunnels - I'm pretty sure mobile signal would not have reached it. And the bomb on the bus, which would have probably gotten the signal, went off about an hour later. Although it's possible that guy was out of range at 8:50.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Kelly is the head honcho for NYPD

Commissioner Ray Kelly was briefing New York security industry bosses on information given to NYPD officers monitoring the investigation in London.

Scotland Yard has refused to comment on the US claims.

The NYPD said UK authorities were happy for them to release details.

Commissioner 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.


Seems they are claiming that the UK authorities are okay with the NY folks leaking this info.

[rman]

8. "alarms set to 0850" : mobile phones used as timers - not remote control

Which i think is peculiar.
But if true it would not require the phones to be in range at the time of detonation.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. So why would someone go through the trouble

of putting a timer on a suicide bomb?

[Frederik]

13. That is a good question

I still have a suspicion that the four young men may have been unwitting suicide bombers.

[rman]

14. or remote control, for that matter.

neither makes sense.

[Taxloss]

17. Because a timer is less conspicuous than a self-detonation.

Context: Londoners have been wary of unclaimed bags since the IRA started the mainland bombing campaign in the 1970s. The London bombs came just months after the launch of a huge new ad campaign warning us about suspect packages and abandoned bags. The bombers had to accompany their bombs - there was no way they could have abandoned bags during rush hour, someone would have stopped them. That is why it had to be a suicide mission.

[Taxloss]

15. The same thing happened in Madrid - phones used as timers.

They could have used alarm clocks or egg timers. Phones are simply very easy to connect to other devices.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. But in the Madrid attack

the terrorists were not suicide bombers.

[Taxloss]

20. Post 17 explains this, I hope.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1675617&mesg_id=1675666

[rman]

18. then we still have 'timed suicide bombers'

which doesn't really make sense.

[Taxloss]

21. Post 17 explains this, I hope.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1675617&mesg_id=1675666

[soothsayer]

4. Sometimes the bombs were of a high caliber military explosive

and sometimes they're called homemade. Covering all the bases here, I see by these confusing and contradictory statements.

[Teaser]

5. IIRC

Keeping gunpowder cool helps improves its "action". Perhaps by keeping he humidity down?

[LiberalVoice]

9. Humidity can be a factor in many different ways...

Too much humidity may also cause certain types of explosives to explode sooner then expected.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. AP Reports has more info

August 4, 2005

The NYPD officials said investigators believe the bombers used a peroxide-based explosive called HMDT, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine. HMDT can be made using ordinary ingredients like hydrogen peroxide (hair bleach), citric acid (a common food preservative) and heat tablets (sometimes used by the military for cooking).

HMDT degrades at room temperature, so the bombers preserved it in way that offered an early warning sign, said Michael Sheehan, deputy commissioner of counterterrorism at the nation's largest police department.

<snip>

* Investigators believe the three bombs that exploded in the subway were detonated by cell phones that had alarms set to 8:50 a.m.

* Similar "explosive compounds" were used in the attempted attack in London on July 21. However, the detonators were hand-activated, not timed.

Sheehan said the NYPD was troubled by information it had received about the bombers' links to "organizations," but he did not name any groups.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-nypd-britain-bombings,0,7602640.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[rman]

12. "detonators were hand-activated" doesn't quite explain

earlier reports about some person's backpack ripping open due to a small explosion (only the detonator exploded) - while that person had the backpack on his back. That person made an exclamation when his backpack exploded.

[Frederik]

19. He probably made the exclamation

because he was expecting to die, and didn't. Another eyewitness reports one of the failed bombers threw himself on his backpack, and then seemed extremely distraught when nothing happened. It does seem pretty clear to me that the July 21 crew were failed suicide bombers. I have more doubts about the 7/7 boys, for various reasons.

[imenja]

22. "New York police official said"

hardly definitive, since they aren't investigating the bombings.

[GliderGuider]

23. Two things occur to me

First, it's probable that the bombers in the first attacks thought they were just transporting bombs that would be set off later by remote control with a call to the cell phone. In fact the bombs were detonated by the timeed alarms on the phones. The cell phones were a convenient ruse used by whoever planned the attacks - their use convinced the bomb-carriers they weren't in any danger, when in fact they were. This means that the planners of the attacks may still be out there.

Second, it's likely that the explosives in the second wave of attacks had degraded due to improper storage. I wondered at the time why all four bombs would fail, and this is the answer. The explosive for all eight may have been made at one time, and the first batch worked because the explosive was fresh. If the material for the next four was stored improperly (or just stored too long), it could have degraded without the bombers being aware of it, thus rendering the last four bombs harmless.

[DoYouEverWonder]

24. The materials shouldn't have degraded

in such a short time, especially if it was being stored in expensive commercial grade refrigerators.

[GliderGuider]

26. We don't know how the stuff was stored

The fact that they found the refrigerators doesn't prove the material for the second batch was stored properly. I don't know anything about the stability of this explosive, so it's hard to say for sure how long it would have taken to deteriorate under various stroage conditions. It just makes intuitive sense to me that degraded explosive was the cause for the failure of the second wave of attacks.

[Benbow]

29. The explosives had a "shelf life" of three weeks

I read somewhere. And by 21 July had deteriorated so far that they did not explode. And keeping the stuff in the refrigerators was to keep it stable (and presumably did not prevent/slow down its deterioration).

[DoYouEverWonder]

31. Couldn't they just go to the beauty store

and buy some more?

[DoYouEverWonder]

32. More likely, the second attack

was by a different unrelated group. Hence different levels of success.

The first attack was more likely American run or at the least American financed. The second one seems to be more of a hurried copy cat attack.

[Taxloss]

25. No, I doubt those accounts.

For a start, mobile phones do not work on most of the Tube. So the bombs could not be set off by remote control (although it was possible at Edgware Road - the station is open).

The timers were to prevent suspicion. Attempting to abandon the bags would rumble the whole operations, so it had to be a suicide attack.

There is no proof that the first wave is linked to the second wave; my guess is that the second wave was an opportunistic stab by an amateurish cell. Certainly the composition of the bombs seems to have been different, and the 21 July bombers were hopeless at covering their tracks.

[GliderGuider]

27. I disagree

There was never any need to have the cell phones work in the tube. The bomb carriers may have been told something like "Take them to these restaurants. Leave them in toilet stalls where they can't be seen. Get out of the restaurants by 9:00 and we'll set them off with the cell phones." Then while the bomb-carriers are still en route, the alarms on the phones go off.

[Taxloss]

28. Why would anyone bomb a restaurant toilet at 9am?

These people wanted to kill as many people as possible - the rush-hour Tube was and is the obvious target.

[GliderGuider]

30. Who knows what actually transpired?

All I'm saying is that it looks like the bomb-carriers were given reason to think the things wouldn't go off on their backs. Otherwise there was no need for cell phones - a simple timer would have done it. Cell phones are normally used to detonate bombs by remote control. The fact that the cell phone alarms were used makes it seem likely to me that the phones were actually used to camouflage the planners' real intentions from the mules carrying the bombs. What the mules were given as a cover story is neither here nor there - all they had to believe is they were in no danger while carrying the bombs.

We're all reading tea leaves here, and I'm just trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit...

[Taxloss]

33. I believe that the bombers knew they were going to die.

Mobile phones make a good triggering mechanism - they're reliable, compact, have a good battery life, are easy to connect to other devices, and are easy to program. The obvious target for any bombing raid on London is the Tube - at rush hour (and 8.50am is the peak of rush hour) the Tube is crammed in Zone One, and if your aim is death and horror, the Tube is the place. Those narrow tunnels really enhance blasts. Bombing a bus as well increases the chaos.

So why timers? Because of the nature of the Tube. At rush hour, there is simply NO ROOM on the Tube. They would not have been able to swing a rucksack off their back and fiddle about in it without attracting attention. They wouldn't be able to abandon the racksacks either - people would have picked them up and followed them, shouting after them. The operation would have failed. It had to be a timed suicide operation.

[DoYouEverWonder]

34. Good points

I remember hearing that rescue workers couldn't get to one of the sites because of the rodents.

When I lived in NYC one of my biggest fears was getting stuck in a train under the East River. Uck!

[Taxloss]

35. I don't know about the rodents,

but these bastards wanted to kill, kill, kill, and Tube tunnels were the obvious target. The UK is very terrorism-savvy thanks to the IRA, and since 11 September and the Iraq War preparedness had reached fever pitch. There was no way these guys could have walked away from their bags in a crowded train.