A Short Recent History of Pressure Cooker Bombs

 

A Short Recent History of Pressure Cooker Bombs

By Michael CrowleyApril 16, 20133 Comments

http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/16/a-short-history-of-pressure-cooker-bombs/

 

 

A member of a bomb disposal team holds onto a pressure cooker after a bomb

scare in Kathmandu June 9, 2011.

 

Authorities are now saying that the explosive devices in Boston were

fashioned from pressure cookers. (Yes, like the closed pot you might use to

cook rice at home.) As it happens, pressure cookers have a nefarious history

in counterterrorism circles. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security

was concerned enough about pressure cooker bombs to issue an alert to

federal and state security officials: "A technique commonly taught in Afghan

terrorist training camps is the use/conversion of pressure cookers into

IEDs," the bulletin warned.

 

That bulletin cited several plots from 2002 to 2004 to use pressure cooker

bombs in France, India and Nepal. But more recently there have been at least

three other instances of would-be terrorists in the west, all of them

Islamic radicals, in possession of pressure cookers for reasons that seemed

not to involve having friends over for dinner. One was an Army private

linked to the 2010 Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, who had reportedly been

taking bomb-making tips from the al Qaeda's short-lived (literally) magazine

Inspire and had various weapons and explosives along with his cooking pot.

(The magazine reportedly  recommended pressure cookers as explosive

devices.) A 2010 suicide bomber in Stockholm had rigged a pressure cooker

bomb that failed to detonate. And as a newer DHS warning about the kitchen

devices noted, the failed 2010 SUV bomb in New York's Times Square was a

pressure cooker device featuring 120 firecrackers. The same DHS memo refers

to a March 2010 bombing with a pressure cooker at a western Christian aid

agency in Pakistan that killed six people.

 

Counterterror officials are surely well aware of these facts and studying

any leads that might link the device in Boston to Islamic radicals here or

abroad. But it's important to bear in mind that the ability to make these

bombs is hardly unique to al Qaeda and its sympathizers. Details on how to

make a pressure cooker bomb can also be found on websites associated with

anarchy and other forms of non-religious radicalism, including this one,

which describes how to build what is "affectionately known as a HELLHOUND."

 

Nor does building a pressure cooker bomb require much money or special

training. As DHS put it in 2004:

 

    Typically, these bombs are made by placing TNT or other explosives in a

pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap at the top of the pressure

cooker. The size of the blast depends on the size of the pressure cooker and

the amount of explosive placed inside.

    Pressure cooker bombs are made with readily available materials and can

be as simple or as complex as the builder decides. These types of devices

can be initiated using simple electronic components including, but not

limited to, digital watches, garage door openers, cell phones or pagers. As

a common cooking utensil, the pressure cooker is often overlooked when

searching vehicles, residences or merchandise crossing the U.S. Borders

 

The identity of the Boston bomber or bombers remains very much unclear, and

it would be foolish to jump to conclusions. It would also be foolish to

ignore the twisted recent history of the pressure cooker as a method for

killing innocent people.

 

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