Quantico, Va. – Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.
Ten years ago, peroxide-based bombs were mostly the work of young pranksters. But the easy- to-make yet deadly chemical cocktails were embraced in the late 1990s by Palestinian militants and suicide bombers bent on killing large groups of people.
Now, Yeager says, the “Mother of Satan” explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S., more so than a nuclear or radiological “dirty” bomb.
“Every serious terrorist group knows about them and knows how to make them,” Yeager said.
The forensic scientist heads the explosives unit at the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., south of Washington.
“Bad guys are bombers. You don’t have to have the level of sophistication to make a bomb that you need to get nuclear materials,” Yeager said.
The bombs are made by mixing chemicals that are used in common household items, including hydrogen peroxide and paint thinner, and easily found at drugstores or hardware stores. Experts know them as TATP, short for triacetone tri peroxide, and HMTD, or hexa methylene triperoxide diamine.
Recent cases of explosions or thwarted attacks with TATP or HMTD in the U.S. include:
Millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam. He was carrying HMTD among the 124 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car when he was arrested near the U.S.-Canadian border in December 1999.
Richard Reid. The British would-be shoe bomber tried unsuccessfully to detonate 8 ounces of TATP hidden in his sneaker during a Paris-to-Miami flight in 2001.
Additionally, counterterrorist authorities say terrorists planned to mix a solution similar to TATP in last summer’s thwarted attacks on as many as 10 London-to-U.S. flights – leading to the crackdown on bringing liquids aboard airlines.
Also, ecoterrorists and animal-rights extremist groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front are believed by authorities to use peroxide-based explosives.
Yeager, 41, who helps the FBI solve bombing cases by investigating the crime-scene debris, is the only U.S. official who makes TATP and similar explosives in mass quantities.
Yeager’s brews are used for testing and training police officers and bomb-sniffing dogs. Until recently, authorities knew little about peroxide-based bombs because they are too volatile to handle casually. Moreover, TATP in particular is hard for dogs to detect.
Over the past year, the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration have trained dog teams to sniff out the chemical cocktails at 75 airports and on subway, train and bus systems in 13 cities. The government pays up to $50,000 to train each of the 420 teams currently in action.
“It’s a threat that’s not here right now, but we see it coming,” said Dave Kontny, director of the TSA’s national explosives- detection canine teams. “So we’re better off to have these teams.”
