bomb threat at Ramstien airbase

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2007-09-05 03:39am

Well this sucks as I am at a base not to far away.

BERLIN (AP) - Three men have been arrested for planning attacks on the U.S. military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt's international airport, a German broadcaster reported Wednesday.
Two of the suspects had German citizenship while the third was Pakistani, the Sudwestrundfunk public broadcaster said. It said the men were arrested Tuesday evening and were close to carrying out the attacks.

German law enforcement officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.

Thousands of U.S. servicemen and women are stationed with their families in Germany, which hosts key installations including the Ramstein Air Base, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and Grafenwoehr training center in Bavaria.

The Ramstein base is in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate and serves as a major transport hub for the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frankfurt's international airport is continental Europe's busiest.

German and U.S. officials have warned of the possibility of a terrorist attack, and security measures have been raised, they said.
snip

news

Golan III · Post by **Golan III** » 2007-09-05 07:11am

That sucks as I frequent Ramstein.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2007-09-05 07:16am

So...what was it, exactly, that they were planning? Anybody knows?

Was it anything serious or another "Hey, let's go and shoot up a military installation! That will terrify those stupid, fat Americans!" type of plot?

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2007-09-05 08:00am

PeZook wrote:So...what was it, exactly, that they were planning? Anybody knows?

Was it anything serious or another "Hey, let's go and shoot up a military installation! That will terrify those stupid, fat Americans!" type of plot?

I believe they had some explosive material for car bombs *vaguely recalls the news on the radio*

Golan III · Post by **Golan III** » 2007-09-05 08:35am

Don't know just yet - sounds like some sort of chemical bombing being planned perhaps?

The threat is very real, however. To tell you the truth I'm surprised it's taken this long...

M · Post by M » 2007-09-05 08:46am

Lonestar wrote:
PeZook wrote:So...what was it, exactly, that they were planning? Anybody knows?

Was it anything serious or another "Hey, let's go and shoot up a military installation! That will terrify those stupid, fat Americans!" type of plot?
I believe they had some explosive material for car bombs *vaguely recalls the news on the radio*

According to this (German) article, the police found 730kg hydrogen peroxide solution, which was also used in the attempted London bombings 2005, July 21.

The Spiegel reports that the police arrested them when they started moving the chemicals to another storage location. The police believes they were about to start experimenting with the chemicals and actually building the bombs.

So, while they were still a long way from actually executing any attacks, they were a quite serious threat.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2007-09-05 08:57am

How explosive is Hydrogen Peroxide as compared to ferterlizer explosives.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2007-09-05 09:06am

dragon wrote:How explosive is Hydrogen Peroxide as compared to ferterlizer explosives.

It's basically what's used for rocket fuel. It's plenty explosive, but unstable. Fertilizer explosives, IIRC, are good because they're easy to make and stable, not because they're a particularly strong explosive.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2007-09-05 12:14pm

PeZook wrote:
dragon wrote:How explosive is Hydrogen Peroxide as compared to ferterlizer explosives.
It's basically what's used for rocket fuel. It's plenty explosive, but unstable. Fertilizer explosives, IIRC, are good because they're easy to make and stable, not because they're a particularly strong explosive.

Doh thats right, I should have known that since my masters is in space sciences. Oh well been sick, yeah we'll blame that.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2007-09-05 12:50pm

dragon wrote:How explosive is Hydrogen Peroxide as compared to ferterlizer explosives.

It's not used as an explosive per se, its used as a raw material for triacetone triperoxide, an explosive that can't be detected by sniffer dogs of bomb detection gear. TATP is very unstable indeed and blows up with only minor provocations. al qaeda use TATP a lot, so do Palestinian terrorists.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2007-09-05 03:09pm

Yeah, they were going to boil the peroxide down and use it on multiple targets. Would've been nasty.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2007-09-05 03:18pm

Stuart wrote:
dragon wrote:How explosive is Hydrogen Peroxide as compared to ferterlizer explosives.
It's not used as an explosive per se, its used as a raw material for triacetone triperoxide, an explosive that can't be detected by sniffer dogs of bomb detection gear. TATP is very unstable indeed and blows up with only minor provocations. al qaeda use TATP a lot, so do Palestinian terrorists.

I vaguely recall in high school that people said that you could use H2O2, paper towels, and some other substance to make a rather nasty pranking concoction called "contact" which would blow up if you did so much as drop the toilet seat on it. If TATP is a more powerful version, then I'm glad they got caught when they did.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2007-09-05 03:25pm

Matt Huang wrote:
Stuart wrote:
dragon wrote:How explosive is Hydrogen Peroxide as compared to ferterlizer explosives.
It's not used as an explosive per se, its used as a raw material for triacetone triperoxide, an explosive that can't be detected by sniffer dogs of bomb detection gear. TATP is very unstable indeed and blows up with only minor provocations. al qaeda use TATP a lot, so do Palestinian terrorists.
I vaguely recall in high school that people said that you could use H2O2, paper towels, and some other substance to make a rather nasty pranking concoction called "contact" which would blow up if you did so much as drop the toilet seat on it. If TATP is a more powerful version, then I'm glad they got caught when they did.

Nitrogen triiodide?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2007-09-05 04:25pm

NPR was just saying that the third conspirator was a Turk, not a Pakistani.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-05 04:42pm

Yeah, according to German news sites it were two Germans and one Turk. They had a load of contacts to Pakistan.