Well it is now official. According to the NYT the London attacks were carried out not only with high-explosive compounds, but also with substantial skill in bomb making:
Investigators said they still did not know whether the explosives contained plastic materials, or were made some other way. But they said the material used in the bombs was similar to the kind manufactured for military use or made for highly technical commercial purposes, such as dynamite used for precision explosions to demolish buildings or in mining.
…
The quality of the explosives has led many investigators to theorize that the bombs were assembled by at least one technically savvy bomb maker, who might have come to Britain to build the devices for use by a local “sleeper cell,” officials said.“People assume you can look up a bomb-making design on the Internet and put one together without any training,” said one senior counter terrorism official based in Europe. “But it’s not that simple or easy.”
Now how would terrorists get a hold of industrial grade high-explosives, I wonder. The ‘blogosphere’ can help, if we all put our experience and google skills together, we can help solve these latter-day Sherlock Holmes’ mystery. Perhaps you the reader have an idea to help those poor investigators:
British intelligence officials have asked their counterparts elsewhere in Europe to scour military stockpiles and commercial sites for missing explosives, three senior European-based intelligence officials said.
Senior counterterrorism officials are concerned that the cell that exploded the bombs might have a stockpile of more explosive material and could strike again, in Britain or in another European country.
They say 10 pound bombs were used. If they made 10 bombs altogether, how much would they have left if they only started with 380 tons of this stuff?
A glance at the destructive power of the nearly 380 tons of conventional explosives the International Atomic Energy Agency says have gone missing from a former military installation in Iraq:
HMX: High melting explosives, as they are scientifically known, are among the most powerful in use by the world’s militaries today. HMX, also known as octogen, is made from hexamine, ammonium nitrate, nitric acid and acetic acid. Because it detonates at high temperatures, it is used in various kinds of explosives, rocket fuels and burster chargers.
RDX: Also referred to as cyclonite or hexogen, RDX is a white crystalline solid usually used in mixtures with other explosives, oils or waxes. Rarely used alone, it has a high degree of stability in storage and is considered the most powerful of the high explosives used by militaries.
PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES: Experts say both HMX and RDX are key ingredients in plastic explosives such as Semtex and C-4, puttylike military substances that easily can be shaped. Libyan terrorists used just 1 pound of Semtex in 1988 to down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
They say you always find things in the last place you look. I guess this is why they are checking the UK first:
Britain has one of Europe’s best security systems for warehouses containing explosive materials, specialists say.
Perhaps if we all think real hard, we can help those investigators find out where those explosives may have come from.