Al Qaeda & R. Reid Link ¶ London Explosives type TATP ¶ Updated!

~ First Published @ European Tribune ~

BREAKING NEWS –

ARREST IN EGYPT OF MISSING CHEMISTRY STUDENT

LONDON (Reuters) – An Egyptian chemistry student wanted by police in connection with last week’s London bombings is understood to have been arrested in Cairo.

“I can confirm that a man has been arrested in Cairo,” a police source told Reuters, saying it was understood to be Magdy Elnashar, 33, a bio-chemistry student at Leeds University who officers have been looking for as part of their inquiry. Elnashar has also studied bio-chemistry in the United States.

British media reports said he had rented one of the houses in Leeds, West Yorkshire, raided by police on Tuesday where large amounts of substances suspected to be explosives were seized.

BBC reported the forensics have indicated the explosives used were NOT of military or commercial origin. The first analysis assumed a high-power explosive was used due to ratio power and weight carried in backpack.

1. London bombing suspect Hasib Mir Hussain at Luton train station in central England.

2. Hasib Hussain -19- from Leeds, who was named as the suicide bomber who died along with passengers on the number 30 bus near Tavistock Square.

BBC News – Police release bus bomber images

More below the fold »»

Personally, learning more about the persons carrying the bombs, I am beginning to doubt their awareness of the purpose of the mission. Perhaps the four persons were ordered to carry material to various London addresses; unaware the bombs would be triggered by a third party. This would explain the nervousness of the fourth bomber as he entered Line 30 bus, on an unscheduled ride from King’s Cross station.

Chances are he missed a subway connection he was scheduled to keep and didn’t know how to solve this matter. He may have been undecided whether to leave the backpack behind or carry it with him on the bus.

Graphic with map and timeline of the last known actions of the British suicide bombers in the hours that preceded last week’s bomb attacks.

Trying to map out Hussain’s movements, police appealed for information from anyone who may have seen him in or around King’s Cross station, where the four suspects parted ways. They released a closed-circuit TV image showing him wearing a large camping-style backpack as he strode through a train station in Luton, outside London, about 21/2 hours before he allegedly blew up the No. 30 bus. He had a mustache and wore jeans, a white shirt and a dark zip-up top or jacket.

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Trafalgar vigil: Crowds gather for a vigil at Trafalgar Square
in remembrance of the victims of the London bombing.

When further investigation does lead to Al Qaeda connection, this makes sense why London is searching for a Brit from Pakistan descent who could have met the four bomb carriers before July 7th, and had left the UK one day before the London attack. Also search is on for an Egyptian, familiar with chemistry who went missing after July 7th. This indicates the terror was fully home grown with international support, similar to the Madrid bombing, an European network.

Triacetone triperoxide, or TATP is highly unstable — also known as the “Mother of Satan” — and difficult to detect by dogs and conventional hi-tech methods, such as nuclear quadrupole resonance.

Ehud Keinan, a chemistry professor at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, faced airport security at its most vigilant when he flew into Baltimore/ Washington International just three weeks after the 9/11 tragedy. Yet a vial holding two grams of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an improvised plastic explosive, went completely undetected.

If the mild-mannered scientist had been a terrorist, and if he had whipped up a larger batch of TATP, he could have downed his connecting flight to Los Angeles, killing hundreds of passengers.

The explosive, the same type used by the so-called “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, went undetected because it is made with acetone and hydrogen peroxide and not nitrogen, which all conventional airport detectors are designed to spot.

TATP is made by mixing into a compound hydrogen peroxide, bought in disinfectant form at the neighborhood pharmacy, acetone commonly found in paint thinners and the addition of an acid catalyst.

Tal Hanan, security expert and CEO of Demoman International Ltd., notes that TATP is hardly military grade. An unlucky tap or nearby cigarette can set it off, leading to fatal “work accidents” among terrorists and explosive ordinance disposal officers alike. Outside of Israel and the territories, the peroxide-based explosive is used — if at all — only as a detonator, and not the main charge, like in the hollowed out heel of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.