Non-Subscriber Extract
Analysis - Jihadists attack UK
05 July 2007
London was attacked on 29 June; Glasgow Airport was hit the following day. The jihadists must be disappointed by their abject failure, but should have expected little else when they set out with crude car bombs that were unlikely to explode.
The attacks seem amateurish. The authorities have not said why the 'potentially viable explosive devices' found in two vehicles in London did not explode for fear of informing the attackers what they did wrong. However, the fact that both failed to detonate suggests there was a common flaw in their design or manufacture.
The first device was found by an ambulance crew attending a minor injury at the Tiger Tiger nightclub on Haymarket at around 0100 on 29 June. The paramedics noticed what appeared to be smoke inside a metallic green Mercedes sedan parked in a bus stop outside the nightclub and called the police. Arriving shortly before 0200, explosives officers found petrol, gas cylinders and a large number of nails inside the vehicle. While the explosives officers are credited with manually disarming the device, the failure of a second device suggests the first may have already failed to detonate. It is unclear when the vehicles were parked, but it stands to reason that the bombers would have wanted to detonate the devices as soon as possible to prevent them being discovered and neutralised.
Indeed, the second Mercedes, a blue 280E, was parked illegally on nearby Cockspur Street, increasing its chances of being scrutinised and removed. It was issued with a parking ticket at about 0230. Around an hour later it was lifted on to the back of a truck and taken to a car pound in Hyde Park. It was parked in a bus stop, according to the truck driver.
Mainstream media reporting has noted that gas cylinders have often been used in bomb attacks in Iraq. However, there seems to be a key difference: in Iraq gas cylinders are typically used as readily available additions to improvised explosive devices, rather than the primary explosive charge. While the authorities have not officially commented on the presence of explosives in the London devices, it seems the gas cylinders were their core ingredient. It is relatively hard to source or make a large quantity of explosives in the UK without risking detection.
The police description of the ingredients in the London car bombs was similar to those that Dhiren Barot, a Briton convicted on terrorism charges in 2006, suggested using in an attack. After his co-conspirators were sentenced in June, the police published an edited version of a document called Rough Presentation for Gas Limos Project. Authored by Barot for the approval of his Al-Qaeda superiors, it details how gas cylinders - specifically those containing propane, butane, acetylene or oxygen - could be easily acquired in the UK, placed in limousines along with various flammable materials and left in an underground car park with the aim of destroying the building above.
The document notes: "Gas explosions from cylinders, if carefully orchestrated, can be as powerful as exploding TNT." Barot proposed using napalm, petrol and other accelerants to heat the cylinders until they exploded, adding that nails could be added "in order to further maximise the damage caused". He also suggested using explosives to help fracture the cylinders, although noted the difficulty of acquiring suitable materials in the UK.
He wrote about using a "manual flame impingement technique" to initiate the device. This probably refers to something that can be lit by the bombers, but does not set fire to the accelerant for some time, providing an opportunity for escape. He also suggested using a time delay circuit, ideally combined with a remote control override that allowed the bombers to delay, prematurely initiate or abort the device. Reports that the London devices included mobile phones - which are often used to remotely initiate bombs - have not been confirmed by the authorities.