The Boston Globe
The powerful explosive that a suspected terrorist is accused of sumggling on board a Paris-to-Miami flight Saturday is a highly unstable substance that is considered a favorite weapon of terrorists and was used in an attempt to blow up a Boeing 747-200 in 1994, according to a government official.
Meanwhile, investigators are scouring passenger lists to determine whether Richard Reid was part of a two-person team intent on blowing up American Airlines Flight 63 Friday, an official said. That day was the 13th anniversary of the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Reid, 28, is a British subject of Jamaican ancestry who converted to Islam while in prison. He is scheduled to appear today at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Boston.
Reid has been charged with interfering with a flight crew, but authorities said it is highly likely that the U.S. attorney’s office will file more serious charges against him before a 30-day deadline expires.
According to a state official who is knowledgeable about the investigation, FBI lab analysts have identified the material in Reid’s shoes as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, a substance somewhat less powerful, but much less stable, than some other plastic explosives.
Still, the 8 to 10 ounces of TATP that was glued beneath the innersoles of Reid’s shoes was sufficient to blow a hole in the plane’s fuselage, the official said.
TATP, experts say, can be manufactured in clandestine labs from commonly available chemicals. But its chief drawback is instability; it has been known to explode simply from being dropped on the floor. That makes it extremely dangerous to make, transport and detonate.
Palestinian radicals who have made TATP their explosive of choice call it the Mother of Satan, not only because of its power but because it can prove as dangerous to the bombers as it is to their targets.
One former U.S. official who has investigated bombing cases said that, although it was not publicly divulged, TATP was detonated on a Philippines Air Lines 747 that was carrying 293 passengers and crew from the Philippines to Japan on Dec. 11, 1994.
The explosion, which killed one man and injured six others, blew a hole through the jumbo jet’s cabin floor but did not pierce the plane’s fuselage.
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