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| Components of McVeigh’s Bomb Noted and Used by Al Qaeda |
| 2004-02-29 |
| .... The Bojinka airline-bombing plot, exposed by an accidental fire in Yousef’s Manila apartment in early January 1995, resulted in the arrest of Abdul Hakim Murad (who later claimed responsibility in the Oklahoma bombing). A spiral-bound notebook seized when Murad was arrested contained a page of instructions on the properties of nitromethane, one of the Oklahoma City bomb components, according to evidence presented at Murad’s trial. .... The notation on nitromethane is located in a section of the notebook that can be dated to late December 1994, at which time Terry Nichols was staying in the Philippines, according to trial testimony. The entry on nitromethane appears to differ from other content in the notebook, which consisted largely of shopping lists for the Bojinka plot and notes on the manufacture of chemicals specifically used in that plan, as described at length during Murad’s trial. Nitromethane was used in the Bojinka plan, but not as a primary explosive material, according to trial testimony and classified documents cited in Seeds of Evil, a 2004 book on al Qaeda by CNN correspondent Maria Ressa. .... According to Peter Lance, author of 1000 Years for Revenge, Ramzi Yousef employed a similar ammonium nitrate-diesel fuel oil bomb in a thwarted attempt to destroy the Israeli embassy in Bangkok just a few months earlier, in March 1994. .... The choice to replace fuel oil with nitromethane [for Oklahoma City] was a deviation that made the bomb more powerful. The specific recipe appears to have been first used in Oklahoma City. Subsequent to the Oklahoma City bombing, ammonium nitrate bombs became a favorite weapon of al Qaeda, and have frequently been used in attacks connected with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the Manila plotters. A bomb manual found in Afghanistan contained a recipe for an ammonium nitrate-based bomb marked with the handrwritten notation "Was used in Oklahoma," according to the New York Times. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |