Pressure cooker bomb

Last updated

Pressure cooker fragment believed by the FBI to be part of one of the explosive devices used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings Pressure cooker bomb.jpg
Pressure cooker fragment believed by the FBI to be part of one of the explosive devices used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings

A pressure cooker bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) created by inserting explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker. [1]

Contents

Pressure cooker bombs have been used in a number of attacks in the 21st century. Among them have been the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, 2010 Stockholm bombings (failed to explode), the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt (failed to explode), the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. [2]

Description

Pressure cooker Pressure.cooker.jpg
Pressure cooker

Pressure cooker bombs are relatively easy to construct. Most of the materials required can be easily obtained. The bomb can be triggered using a simple electronic device such as a digital watch, garage door opener, cell phone, pager, kitchen timer, or alarm clock. [1] [3] The power of the explosion depends on the size of the pressure cooker and the amount and type of explosives used. [4]

Similar to a pipe bomb, the containment provided by the pressure cooker means that the energy from the explosion is confined until the pressure cooker itself explodes. This in turn creates a relatively large explosion using low explosives and generating potentially lethal fragmentation. [5]

History

2000–09

French police prevented a terrorist attack in Strasbourg, France, on New Year's Eve 2000. Ten militants were convicted for the plot. [6]

From 2002–04, pressure cooker bombs were widely used in terror and IED attacks in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. [7]

In 2003, a terrorist from Chechnya named Abdullah, carrying a pressure cooker bomb detonated explosives and killed six people before being arrested near Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan. [8] The Taliban claimed responsibility. [8] In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to US agencies about pressure cookers being converted to IEDs. [7]

In July 2006, in Mumbai, India, 209 people were killed and 714 injured by pressure cooker bombs in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. [6] According to Mumbai Police, the bombings were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). [9]

2010–present

Step-by-step instructions for making pressure cooker bombs were published in an article titled "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" in the Al-Qaeda-linked Inspire magazine in the summer of 2010, by "The AQ chef". [3] [10] [11] The article describes the technique as a simple way to make a highly effective bomb. [12] Analysts believe the work was the brainchild of Anwar al-Awlaki, and edited by him and by Samir Khan. [13] [14] Inspire's goal is to encourage "lone wolf" Jihadis to attack what they view as the enemies of Jihad , including the United States and its allies. [15]

Justice Department diagram showing positioning of pressure cooker in Faisal Shahzad's vehicle in New York's Times Square bombing Timesssquaresuv.jpg
Justice Department diagram showing positioning of pressure cooker in Faisal Shahzad's vehicle in New York’s Times Square bombing

Several Islamic radical terrorist attempts in the 2010s involved pressure cooker bombs. [7] The unsuccessful Times Square car bombing attempt in May 2010, in New York City, included a pressure cooker bomb which failed to detonate. [6] [7] [16] [17] The bomb-maker, Faisal Shahzad, was sentenced to life in prison. [6] In the December 2010 Stockholm bombings, Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Islamic extremist suicide bomber who cited Swedish troops in Afghanistan as justification for the attack, set up a pressure cooker bomb, which failed to detonate. [7] [18]

Pressure cooker bombs were utilized in the 2011 Marrakesh bombing, where Adil El-Atmani, a Moroccan citizen who had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, remotely detonated 2 homemade bombs, killing 17 and injuring 25. [19]

In July 2011, Naser Jason Abdo, a U.S. Army private at Fort Hood, Texas, who took pressure cooker bomb-making tips from the Al-Qaeda magazine article, was arrested for planning to blow up a restaurant frequented by U.S. soldiers. Two pressure cookers and bomb-making materials were found in his hotel room. [7] [17] [20] He was sentenced to life in prison. [17]

In Pakistan, in March 2010, six employees of World Vision International were killed by a remotely detonated pressure cooker bomb. [17] [21] In October 2012, French police found a makeshift pressure cooker with bomb-making materials near Paris as part of an investigation into an attack on a kosher grocery store. [16]

Two pressure cooker bombs were used in the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013. [22] The pressure cookers were filled with nails, ball bearings, and black powder. Initially, it was believed the devices were triggered by kitchen-type egg timers, [23] however, subsequent evidence indicated a remote device was used to trigger the bombs. [24] One of the bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told investigators that he learned the technique from an article in Inspire magazine. [25]

On Canada Day 2013, pressure cooker bombs failed to explode at the Parliament Building in Victoria, British Columbia. [26]

On May 19, 2016, passengers on a bus in Wrocław, Poland, alerted the driver to a suspicious package. The driver removed the package from the bus. Shortly later it exploded with no fatalities but did injure one woman slightly. Authorities believed it was a three liter pressure cooker packed with nails and nitrate explosive. [27]

On September 17, 2016, an explosion occurred in Lower Manhattan, New York, wounding 29 civilians. The origin of the explosion was found to be a pressure cooker bomb. [28] At least one other bomb was found unexploded. [29] A suspect for that explosion and others in New Jersey, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was captured two days later. [30]

Both the 2010 Stockholm bombings and the foiled 2016 Sweden terrorism plot involved pressure-cooker bombs. [31] [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pentaerythritol tetranitrate</span> Explosive chemical compound

Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), also known as PENT, pentyl, PENTA, TEN, corpent, or penthrite, is an explosive material. It is the nitrate ester of pentaerythritol, and is structurally very similar to nitroglycerin. Penta refers to the five carbon atoms of the neopentane skeleton. PETN is a very powerful explosive material with a relative effectiveness factor of 1.66. When mixed with a plasticizer, PETN forms a plastic explosive. Along with RDX it is the main ingredient of Semtex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bomb</span> Explosive weapon that uses exothermic reaction

A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanical stress, the impact and penetration of pressure-driven projectiles, pressure damage, and explosion-generated effects. Bombs have been utilized since the 11th century starting in East Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Car bomb</span> Improvised explosive device

A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Improvised explosive device</span> Unconventionally produced bomb

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2004 Madrid train bombings</span> Terrorist attack on Madrids suburban trains

The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's general elections. The explosions killed 200 people and injured around 2,500. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain and the deadliest in Europe since 1988. The attacks were carried out by individuals who opposed Spanish involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nail bomb</span> Anti-personnel explosive device

A nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device containing nails to increase its effectiveness at harming victims. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to more injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. A nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon. Such weapons use bits of shrapnel to create a larger radius of destruction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2006 Mumbai train bombings</span> 2006 terrorist attack on the Mumbai Suburban Railway by Lashkar-e-Taiba

The 2006 Mumbai train bombings were a series of seven bomb blasts on 11 July. They took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the nation's financial capital. The bombs were set off in pressure cookers on trains plying on the Western Line Suburban Section of the Mumbai Division of Western Railway. The blasts killed 209 people and injured over 700 more.

The following is a list of attacks which have been carried out by Al-Qaeda.

Chlorine bombings in Iraq began as early as October 2004, when insurgents in Al Anbar province started using chlorine gas in conjunction with conventional vehicle-borne explosive devices.

Urban terrorism is the targeted use of terrorism in urban populations in order to cause the most harm, injury, death, or property damage. Since urban areas have significantly higher population densities than rural areas, targeting those areas can maximize the effect of the terrorist attack.

<i>Inspire</i> (magazine) Online Jihadist magazine published by Al-Qaeda

Inspire is an English-language online magazine published by the organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The magazine is one of the many ways AQAP uses the Internet to reach its audience. Numerous international and domestic extremists motivated by radical interpretations of Islam have been influenced by the magazine and, in some cases, used its bomb-making instructions in their attempts to carry out attacks. The magazine is an important brand-building tool, not just of AQAP, but of all al-Qaeda branches, franchises and affiliates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei</span> Greek anarchist militant organization

The Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, also translated as Conspiracy of Fire Cells or Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, is an anarchist urban guerrilla organization based in Greece. The SPF first surfaced in January 2008, with a wave of 11 firebombings against luxury car dealerships and banks in Athens and Thessaloniki. Monthly waves of arson have been followed by proclamations expressing solidarity with arrested anarchists in Greece and elsewhere. In September 2009, following an escalation to the use of crude time bombs, four suspected members of the group were arrested. In November 2010 two more suspects were arrested while attempting to mail parcel bombs to embassies and EU leaders and organizations.

On October 29, 2010, two packages, each containing a bomb consisting of 300 to 400 grams (11–14 oz) of plastic explosives and a detonating mechanism, were found on separate cargo planes. The bombs were discovered as a result of intelligence received from Saudi Arabia's security chief. They were in transport from Yemen to the United States and were discovered at stopover locations: one at East Midlands Airport in the UK and one in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

A body cavity bomb (BCB) is an explosive device hidden inside the body of a person in order to commit a suicide attack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Propane bomb</span> Explosive device

A propane bomb is a type of improvised explosive device which uses commercially available bottled gas cylinders, a kind of BLEVE. The devices have been used in terror attacks and school bombing plots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston Marathon bombing</span> 2013 domestic terrorist attack in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

The Boston Marathon bombing, sometimes referred to as simply the Boston bombing, was an Islamist domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs that detonated near the finish line of the race 14 seconds and 210 yards (190 m) apart. Three people were killed and hundreds injured, including 17 who lost limbs.

This is a list of terrorist incidents in Pakistan in 2014.

Terrorism in Argentina has occurred since at least the 1970s, especially during the Argentine Dirty War, where a number of terror acts occurred, with support of both the democratic government of Juan Perón, Isabel Perón and the following de facto government of the National Reorganization Process. In the 1990s, two major terrorist attacks occurred in Buenos Aires, which together caused 115 deaths and left at least 555 injured.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of terrorism in Egypt (2013–present)</span> Islamist insurgency in Egypt

In July 2013, at the same time as mass protests began against the 3 July coup d'état which deposed Mohamed Morsi, and in parallel with the escalation of the already ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, pro-Muslim Brotherhood militants started violent attacks against policemen and soldiers in central and western Egypt. In the following months, new Islamist armed groups were created to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt, like Soldiers of Egypt and the Popular Resistance Movement. Since 2013, violence in mainland Egypt has escalated and developed into a low-level Islamist insurgency against the Egyptian government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 New York and New Jersey bombings</span> Bombing attack in the United States

On September 17–19, 2016, three bombs exploded and several unexploded ones were found in the New York metropolitan area. The bombings left 31 people wounded, but no fatalities or life-threatening injuries were reported.

References

  1. 1 2 "A Short Recent History of Pressure Cooker Bombs". swampland. April 16, 2013. Archived from the original on April 18, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  2. ↑ "What we know about the Boston bombing and its aftermath". CNN. April 19, 2013. Archived from the original on April 22, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Boston Bombs Were In Pressure Cookers And Hidden In Black Duffel Bags, Says Person Briefed On Probe". Huffington Post. April 16, 2013. Archived from the original on April 16, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  4. ↑ US Department of Homeland Security (2004). "POTENTIAL TERRORIST USE OF PRESSURECOOKERS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 12, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  5. ↑ "How pressure-cooker bombs boost the deadliness of 'low explosives'". Ctvnews.ca. February 20, 2005. Archived from the original on April 19, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "A history of pressure cooker bombs". CBC News. Archived from the original on April 17, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Crowley, Michael (April 16, 2013). "A Short Recent History of Pressure Cooker Bombs". Time. Archived from the original on April 18, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  8. 1 2 "Taliban claims Kabul suicide attack". smh.com.au. December 29, 2003. Archived from the original on July 28, 2014. Retrieved April 19, 2013.
  9. ↑ "Death Toll at 209". CNN. September 30, 2006. Archived from the original on April 23, 2009. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Boston bombing investigators focus on possible suspect in surveillance video". CBS/AP News Article. CBS News. April 17, 2013. Archived from the original on April 19, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2013.
  11. ↑ "Pressure-cooker bomb instructions in Al-Qaeda magazine". USA Today. April 16, 2013. Archived from the original on April 18, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  12. ↑ "Pressure cooker bombs suspected in Boston blast". Associated Press. April 16, 2013. Archived from the original on June 7, 2020. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  13. ↑ Paul Koring (April 17, 2013). "Lone-wolf bomber scenario poses special challenges for law agencies". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  14. ↑ Spencer, Richard (April 16, 2013). "Boston Marathon bombs: Al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine taught pressure cooker bomb-making techniques". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on April 18, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  15. ↑ Lee Keath. "Pressure Cooker Bombs Used in Past by Militants". ABC News. Archived from the original on April 19, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2013.
  16. 1 2 "Pressure-cooker bombs used around the world". MSN. April 13, 2013. Archived from the original on April 19, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  17. 1 2 3 4 "'Pressure Cooker' Bombs: Crude Devices In Boston Marathon Explosions Used In Previous Attacks Around The World )". Huffington Post. April 16, 2013. Archived from the original on April 17, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  18. ↑ Jill Lawless and Malin Rising (December 13, 2010). "Taimour Abdulwahab, Stockholm Bomber, Seen As Radical By U.K. Muslims". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on November 18, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2013.
  19. ↑ "L'incroyable histoire du terroriste de Marrakech". LEFIGARO (in French). May 6, 2011. Archived from the original on November 30, 2022. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  20. ↑ "Forensic Investigators Gather Clues to the Boston Bombing". San Francisco Chronicle. July 1, 2010. Retrieved April 17, 2013.[ dead link ]
  21. ↑ "ROLL CALL RELEASE; (U) Prepared by the DHS/I&A Homeland Counterterrorism Division, the FBI/Directorate of Intelligence, and the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group; Warning: This document is UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (U//FOUO). Pressure Cookers as IED Components" (PDF). publicintelligence.net. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 28, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  22. ↑ Vinograd, Cassandra; Dodds, Paisley (April 16, 2013). "AP Glance: Pressure Cooker Bombs". The Boston Globe. Associated Press. Archived from the original on April 22, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  23. ↑ Seelye, Katharine Q.; Schmitt, Eric; Shane, Scott (April 16, 2013). "Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim". New York Times. Archived from the original on April 18, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  24. ↑ "Congressman: Boston bombs triggered by remote control". CBS News. April 24, 2013. Archived from the original on October 31, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Search of Tsarnaevs' phones, computers finds no indication of accomplice, source says". nbcnews.com. Archived from the original on April 25, 2013. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
  26. ↑ "Pressure cooker bomb plot thwarted in Canada" . The Telegraph (UK). London. Reuters. July 2, 2013. Archived from the original on October 10, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  27. ↑ Gregor Gowans, "No Fatalities Following Explosion Involving Bus 145" Archived June 6, 2017, at the Wayback Machine , Wroclaw Uncut, 19 May 2016.
  28. ↑ "New York City shaken by 'intentional' explosion, 29 injured". Archived from the original on September 18, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
  29. ↑ Mele, Christopher; Baker, Al; Barbaro, Michael (September 17, 2016). "Powerful Blast Injures at Least 29 in Manhattan; Second Device Found". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 18, 2016. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
  30. ↑ "NY, NJ bombings: Suspect in custody after shootout with police, sources say". CNN. September 19, 2016. Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  31. ↑ "Han hade ett bombbälte". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). December 13, 2010. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2017.
  32. ↑ "Teaching student jailed over Sweden terror plot". The Local. June 2, 2016. Archived from the original on February 21, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.