Patterico's Pontifications

5/3/2010

NY Bomb: Terrorism With International Ties (Updated)

Filed under: Government,Terrorism — DRJ @ 11:45 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Washington Post is running the following banner:

“Failed car bomb in Times Square increasingly appears to have been coordinated by several people in a plot with international ties, Obama administration officials said Tuesday.

White House officials also characterize the incident as attempted terrorism for the first time, dramatically stepping up their description of the intended attack.”

[EDIT: The Post’s website now includes this longer report.]

This follows an earlier AP report that the NYPD has interviewed the owner of the SUV:

Investigators have spoken to the registered owner of a sport utility vehicle that contained a homemade bomb in the failed Times Square terrorist attack, but he is not considered a suspect, officials said Monday.

The car was registered in Connecticut, where the owner on record was questioned Sunday night about what happened to the SUV since it was in his possession, according to law enforcement officials, who both spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is at a sensitive stage.
***
The vehicle identification number on the 1993 dark-colored Nissan Pathfinder had been removed from the dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine and axle. Its license plates came from a car found in a Connecticut repair shop.”

The article states that the SUV’s license plates came from a Connecticut repair shop, which probably makes Connecticut the current focus of the investigation.

Unlike yesterday, when she said this looked like the act of a “one-off” perpetrator, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today (on Monday’s NBC’s “Today” show) that no suspects or theories had been ruled out: “Right now, every lead has to be pursued.”

— DRJ

UPDATE — The SUV was purchased through Craigslist:

“The vehicle was sold for cash about three weeks ago at a Connecticut shopping mall in a sale arranged through Craigslist, CNN reported, citing an unidentified person in law enforcement with knowledge of the investigation.

The seller, a Connecticut resident who has been questioned by officers, didn’t exchange paperwork with the buyer, a man who took possession of the vehicle and drove away, CNN reported.

The FBI has identified a “person of interest” in the incident, ABC News reported, without saying where it got the information.”

58 Responses to “NY Bomb: Terrorism With International Ties (Updated)”

  1. Well, hate to spam a little but its a cause for me right now. I am trying to get participants in the everyone draw mohammed movement. We don’t know if this was south park inspired, but no matter what, this is your chance to stand up against violence and intimidation. Draw Mohammed, draw him early, draw him often, and offend a terrorist today!

    so check us out, here: http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com/

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  2. DHS is just another ineffective bureaucracy, and the terrorists themselves certainly haven’t gone away; they are organized and funded by a lot of very powerful sponsors.

    So why no such coordinated attacks till now? Cuz the sponsors saw what happened to Saddam and were afraid of the US, whose military was right on their doorstep.

    But they don’t seem to fear retaliation anymore. Now why would that be?

    ras (88eebb)

  3. oh please.
    if there is a foreign link couldn’t the event organisers have sent along a half page of carbomb-building instructions?
    The retard didnt even open the valves on the propane tanks and he bought non-explosive fertilizer.
    This screams amateur.

    [note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]

    wheeler's cat (fe6068)

  4. wheeler

    al quaeda is not exactly a group of professionals, you know. which is not to downplay their danger, but to state a fact.

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  5. Apparently nishi the genocidal eugenecist has not read the reports from her hero, Teh One’s administration about the international ties and connections. SHOCKA

    JD (c1a2b8)

  6. There is no discernible reason why we should be spending precious resources on these amateurs while the wacist teabaggers are still on the loose.

    Dmac (21311c)

  7. AW, keep spamming. Still love that Muhammad ‘not getting it’ cartoon.

    And Wheeler, the ‘oh please’ act is getting old. Stop believing the spin. Al Qaida is mostly a group of imbeciles. I shouldn’t even bother saying it, but it’s just not that hard to destroy lots of stuff. They screw up most of the time.

    This was a more sophisticated effort that you’re giving it credit for being, despite the fact that it failed. I don’t know if this was Al Qaida or some Tim McVeigh or some deranged Red Sox fan, but I think the target strongly implies international terrorists.

    I don’t understand the need to spin around that. I keep seeing people insist Joe Stack, hater of individual ‘greed’ and capitalism, was a ‘teabagger’ and this Times Square bomber guy was ‘bubba teabagger’ (fark.com). Why?

    It’s projection that some on the left keep insisting the right is seeing a political angle here. We just see another in a long line of Al Qaida attacks on New York. They want to imply it’s somehow related to the opposition to Obama, and I’m getting damn tired of it.

    If Napalitano doesn’t pull her head out, we’re going to see more and more of these attacks, so I guess I need to get used to the spin.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  8. Nishit – Refute Meh !

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050300847.html?hpid=topnews

    You know nishi/wheelers is having a bad day when the WaPo says she is an imbecile.

    Even Barcky cannot make this out to be some teabagger.

    [note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]

    JD (c1a2b8)

  9. This screams amateur = Wheeler

    You know, the “AlQueda doesn’t do amateur” train pretty much left the rails when the panty bomber burned off his own junk in flight last December.

    elissa (cf7128)

  10. Jeeze, ya mean Janet Planet actually had the brains to try and keep her big mouth shut about an active investigation?

    Will wonders never cease?

    mojo (8096f2)

  11. “Right now, every lead has to be pursued.”

    — Translation: “I’m not going to chance offending ANY Muslims, radical or otherwise, until the evidence is overwhelming & incontrovertible.”

    Give her an A+ in political correctness, and a D- in astuteness & being forthright.

    Icy Texan (56ef75)

  12. Icy,

    She has trouble even calling it terrorism. i mean, crud, call it what it is. I mean Tim McVeigh was a terrorist, so its not the exclusive trademark of islamofascism.

    But i find it interesting that the media says, “if its a white guy its not islamic terrorism.” Um, actually it still could be. duh.

    And i am not big on conspiracy theories, but if we discovered that bin Laden had a hand in the OK city bombing, i wouldn’t be surprised. contrary to the conventional wisdom of dems, our enemies actually do team up now and then. it might seem weird for racists like mcveigh to team up with dark skinned islamofacist terrorists, but i have no doubt they would be willing.

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  13. Comment by Dustin — 5/3/2010 @ 1:34 pm

    I vote “Red Sox fan”!

    In comparison, AQ makes the IRA look like NASA, when they actually could put stuff up.

    AD - RtR/OS! (ad3aba)

  14. Nishi, but all fertlizer is non-explosive. It’s not what blows up, it’s the fuel that’s mixed into it – the fertilizer feeds the explosion.

    McVeighs bomb-truck, for example, was full of Ammonium NItrate that had been mixed with fuel.

    SarahW (af7312)

  15. This screams amateur.

    As do your trollish comments.

    Old Coot (f722a6)

  16. I’m guessing the fertilizer was KNO3

    SarahW (af7312)

  17. AD, and AW,

    That man who threatened South Park was actually at Times Square when this attacked was attempted.

    Apparently he was also shouting Democratic Underground style fake-teabagger slogans, like birther stuff.

    If the partisanship were reversed, this would be on the tip of everyone’s tongue and on every news channel and over every paper’s front fold.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  18. 96% pure ammonium nitrate is a tertiary explosive without the addition of petroleum. But, as a tertiary explosive, you need at a minimum a stick of dynamite as the secondary explosive to detonate it. An M80 or propane tank will not do it.

    nk (db4a41)

  19. A.W., given her never-acknowledged but assumed sexual preference, she probably believes that most of what’s gone wrong with the world is a “man-caused disaster”.

    Hey, I’ve got a cartoon idea: a Muslim man flushing a Muslim woman down the toilet whilst reading a copy of the Qur’an, with a thought balloon above his head that reads, “Doesn’t make much sense, but if The Prophet says to do it . . .” There could be a depiction of Muhammad on the back cover of the book.

    Icy Texan (56ef75)

  20. KNO3, potassium nitrate, is the oxygenator in blackpowder. It promotes the burning of the charcoal and sulfur. There, all you need is to ignite it. However, although it can be made to detonate in high temperature and pressure (e.g. plugged gun barrel) all it normally does is burn very rapidly.

    nk (db4a41)

  21. I think I’ll just try to reinsert Muhammad back into the South Park scenes he was deleted from for AW’s blog.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  22. icy

    sounds good. remember artistic quality is not a requirement. Seriosly, not even close. i mean look at what we posted. We might get an fatwah for back artistry alone.

    Dustin

    Sure, the guys who threatened south park were there when the viacom building was blown up.

    Seriously, wtf, guys? shouldn’t these idiots be in jail. it is not legal to threaten people, even by implication alone.

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  23. There is a difference between detonation and explosion. You can make water explode. Detonation is the release of energy from the nearly instantaneous breakdown of the molecular bonds of a compound.

    nk (db4a41)

  24. Thank you, Alfred Nobel.

    nk (db4a41)

  25. Nk – is that why they would put it in a (maybe extra-special sealed) gun locker?

    SarahW (af7312)

  26. He was protesting Obama from a perfect (and pretty safe) vantage point from where the car would have blown up. Like a henchman mastermind wanting to see his plan work.

    He even looks a lot like the ‘bald white guy’ who supposedly ran from the truck. He posted a picture of the corpse of the Van Gogh, asserting the same would happen to Viacom, and then he is watching as someone tries to blow up a huge bomb next to Viacom.

    I guess this isn’t enough to convict. But I think the website effort was more than lulz pranksterism. How in the #$%@ did he manage to get a permit to protest at Times Square and not warrant some FBI surveillance? It’s obvious this man should have been carefully watched ever since he made his public threat.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  27. I went to high school in the early seventies. We made blackpowder in chemistry class and were quizzed on calculating its energy released vs. that of nitroglycerin. Our teacher told us how nitroglycerin is made but he did not let us make it. He was cool, not crazy. 😉

    nk (db4a41)

  28. I thought maybe they just screwed up instructions about mixing fuel and fertilizer.

    But, tell me, Nk, if there were a big hot primary gasoline explosion, the saltpetre or whatever other kind of not ammonium nitrate was in the locker, help the propane asplode?

    SarahW (af7312)

  29. This comment I saw this morning, is where my curiosity about fertlizer explosions and the characterization by NYPD about the fertilizer in the van as non-explosive came from:

    Point Man wrote on May 3, 2010 1:33 AM:
    ” Just for the record, no fertilizer is explosive or even flammable. Ammonium nitrate like its cousin potassium nitrate (a component of black powder) is an oxidizer, i.e., it gives off oxygen when heated. When mixed with a flammable substance like diesel fuel and heated with a detonator or primary igniter, they cause the diesel fuel to burn extremely rapidly or to explode.

    Timothy McVeigh used ammonium nitrate mixed with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate mixed with liquid nitromethane (used as race car fuel and extremely flammable) in the Oklahoma City bombing. “

    SarahW (af7312)

  30. Let me speculate. If the bottle were breached, as Have Blue said, the moment there was a roughly 3% air/fuel mixture there would have been an explosion of the propane. A very big one. And very hot. The saltpeter, if the locker was strong enough to maintain pressure and got hot enough, could have reached a critical point and broken down i.e. detonated making an even bigger explosion.

    nk (db4a41)

  31. BTW, you were not wrong about adding diesel fuel to ammonium nitrate. That’s like hamburger helper to add more energy. But it’s still a tertiary explosive and you still need explosive grade fertilizer.

    nk (db4a41)

  32. Comment by SarahW — 5/3/2010 @ 2:46 pm

    I don’t think that’s entirely correct. I believe high grade ammonium nitrate is what I said — a tertiary explosive. I have read that it was used extensively in blasting operations when the people who were doinng land clearing and such did not want high quantities of the less stable and harder to get dynamite around.

    nk (db4a41)

  33. Saw this over at hot air –
    A good description of the contents and how they were placed…
    The device was found in the back of the SUV, Mr Kelly said, with the gasoline cans closest to the back seat and the gun locker behind them. The fertilizer was in clear plastic bags bearing the logo of a store that the police declined to identify.
    The wires from battery-powered fluorescent clocks ran into the gun locker, where a metal pressure-cooker pot contained a thicket of wires and more M-88s, Mr Kelly said.

    “The detonation device, it was believed that the timers would ignite the can of explosives, and that would cause the five-gallon cans to go on fire and then explode the propane tanks and have some effect on that rifle box,” Mr. Kelly said.

    Investigators believed that the fuses on the firecrackers had been lighted, but they did not explode, officials said. The burning fuses apparently ignited a portion of the Pathfinder’s interior, causing a small fire that filled the inside with smoke, one law enforcement official said.

    Another official said that pops heard by a firefighter as he approached the vehicle might have been made by the fireworks failing to fully detonate.

    http://www.ndtv.com/news/world/times-square-bomb-scare-owner-of-stranded-car-found-22911.php

    Deanna on May 3, 2010 at 12:38 PM

    SarahW (af7312)

  34. It’s called ANFO for a reason, nk. It is a tertiary explosive but only as a mixture.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  35. My practical experience on this is limited. The blasting powder my father used to clear our land looked like thick black hollow strands of spaghetti. It would react to fire but to make it explode you needed to drill a hole in the rock, pack it in tight, and use a large cap to detonate it. I suspect that it was a propellant possibly canibalized from a cannon shell and not one of Mr. Nobel’s marvels.

    nk (db4a41)

  36. No, SPQR, you are wrong. Ammonium nitrate all by itself can be made to decompose by a secondary explosive and there have been horrible disasters when high quantities decomposed spontaneously because they were stored improperly.

    nk (db4a41)

  37. Sounds like nk’s school was one of those that had unpadded trampolines and climbing ropes to the ceilings 🙂

    ahhh good times before the lawsuits – good times

    EricPWJohnson (f128de)

  38. nk, I think we are using differing definitions but further chemical discussion would not be appropriate and I don’t wish to make Patterico nervous.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  39. Comment by nk — 5/3/2010 @ 3:41 pm

    Sounds like your Dad was using Cordite SC-T, which was not invented by Mr.Nobel; in fact, he sued for patent infringement (for the original Cordite), and lost.

    AD - RtR/OS! (ad3aba)

  40. No problem, SPQR. ANFOs are used by people who want to do maximum damage. Pure ammonium nitrate is used by a farmer who just wants to get a boulder out of the way of his plow with minimum damage.

    nk (db4a41)

  41. Sometimes I think there is a method to the failures. After all, if an attack succeeds, the anticipation factor leaves and the revenge factor sets in. You might be able to influence how people behave by keeping them in the frame of mind that the danger is just around the corner. That might be when people are willing to make trade offs in regard to their behavior and their liberties.

    jcurtis (138cbe)

  42. Comment by EricPWJohnson — 5/3/2010 @ 4:07 pm

    The school as a whole basically sucked. Our chemistry teacher, a WWII veteran was the one who was cool. He also taught us how to distill alcohol from raisins and sugar and … honest to God, I swear … he advised us to watch the bartender carefully when we ordered a second drink because we can taste whether the first one is Jack Daniels but not whether the second one is bar whiskey. We were seventeen.

    nk (db4a41)

  43. I updated the post with more on the SUV.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  44. A.W. #22 – sounds like the time is ripe for a new award – the FatWaaaaaaaah – to be awarded to the person/group complaining in the whiniest way about Islam or the Prophet or Muslims not being treated as well as the recipient of the FatWaaaaaaaah would like …

    The only problem I can see with it, right now, is that CAIR would probably win it almost all the time …

    Alasdair (0e7b33)

  45. If A.W. will post my submission, it shows that actual artistic merit is of no consequence.

    Still think it was a teabagger, nishi?

    JD (c1a2b8)

  46. Had to wait for it but now it’s here:

    Bloomberg later told CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric that the suspect behind the bombing attempt could be a domestic terrorist angry at the government who acted alone.

    “If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything,” he said.

    Teflon Dad (287a17)

  47. Teflon Dad, these attempts to sweep in domestic political opposition with terrorists are not just loose talk, or unthinking rhetoric. These are deliberate attempts to attack political opposition as violent extremists despite the contrary.

    Its the kind of despicable slander we’ve come to expect from Democrats and their allies like RINO’s like Bloomberg.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  48. Did Bloomberg say this today? My guess is he knew by this morning that there could be foreign ties, so this was a win-win for him: He could please liberal media by slandering conservatives as domestic terrorists, while knowing it probably won’t pan out and, over time, most people will forget what he said.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  49. Bloomberg is prolly just trying to avoid the mythical anti-muslim backlash the grievance mongers will start complaining about in 3…2….1.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  50. Linky to Bloomberg telling Katie Couric bomber was prolly somebody domestic sending a nastygram about Onbamacare.

    http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/05/unreal-mayor-bloomberg-says-car-bomber-could-have-political-agenda-against-health-care-bill/

    elissa (cf7128)

  51. Bloomberg was reading too many of nishi/wheeler’s comments, and started going insane in the membrane.

    JD (150c8d)

  52. Bloomberg is so invested in his “gun running” investigations that anything that happens in NYC has to be the result of domestic, RW, wacko, gun-owners.

    AD - RtR/OS! (ad3aba)

  53. JD

    your pic is up, proving i have no standards. it was the first pic of the night.

    A.W. (f97997)

  54. JD, at least one state Attorney General told Bloomberg that the next time he sent PI’s to commit crimes, e.g., straw purchases, he’d be arrested.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  55. Whoops, that should have been addressed to AD.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  56. “If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything,” he said. – Comment by Teflon Dad

    The “mentally deranged” people are those who refuse to consider an Islamofascist radical on their list of top ten possibilities.

    If all Bloomburg was willing to put down on his hunch was 25 cents, the hunch wasn’t worth a whole heck of a lot, now was it? In fact, it wasn’t worth the oxygen he used up in making the statement.

    How in the world can supposedly sccomplished people make comments that are so foolish?

    Yes, it could have been a lot of people for lots of reasons, perhaps a Knicks fan has just seen one too many NBA seasons end without the likes of Walt Frazier and Willis Reed. Maybe it was an irrate Frenchman who wants to reposess the Statue of Liberty, or someone from the Twin -Cities tired of being from the “Minniapple”. Maybe a Dutchman still angry about the name change from New Amsterdam. Maybe a “9/11’er” wanting to make another explosion and frame the feds to prove a point. Or maybe someone got tired of being given parking tickets (I hope that’s not it, cause that would leap like lightning down to Philly).

    I’m all for waiting to see where the investigation leads, but doing mental contortions to avoid naming the most likely possibility is simply idiotic.

    MD in Philly (82b937)

  57. “If I had to guess 25 cents, …”

    Is that a common phrase in the Northeast? Where I live we say “If I had a nickel for everytime …” or “Betcha a nickel …” Then again, everything is more expensive in New York.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  58. In my neck of the woods it’s only .02. We often preface observations with, “just my two cents worth, but…”

    elissa (cf7128)


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