Suspected failed car bombing in Times Square

[d'Artagnan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

NEW YORK -- Police evacuated buildings and cleared streets of thousands of tourists around New York City's Times Square on Saturday after finding an apparent car bomb in a parked SUV.

New York City police said a mounted police officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV at 6:30 p.m. A law enforcement official tolds The Associated Press that bomb investigators found propane tanks, powder and an apparent timing device inside the vehicle. The official wasn't authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Times Square, known as the Crossroads of the World, is one of the busiest urban areas in the U.S. and is typically teeming with people.

Police evacuated several residential and commercial buildings and cleared several streets of thousands of tourists milling around on a warm Saturday night.

Police said the car was parked on 45th Street and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution.

Paul Bresson, head of the FBI's public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington, said agents are on the scene with the New York Police Department and that the matter is being taken seriously.

This is just a very preliminary report and the bomb squad hasn't had a chance to look at the device, but I suspect we'll here quite a bit more about this.

ETA: It looks like it was found near the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force headquarters.

[Surlethe]

WSJ

Police shut down four streets in the heart of Times Square on Saturday night after a car fire, creating panic among tourists and passersby on one of the theater district's busiest nights. At least one Broadway show was canceled and some others were delayed. Subway service on many lines also was suspended or delayed.

After 6:30 p.m., police received a call about a suspicious vehicle. They blocked the area from West 43rd to 47th streets along Broadway and Seventh Avenue with metal railings. Parts of 48th Street were closed down as well.

Police said a bomb-squad investigation was on the scene and that the car on fire was a sport utility vehicle that had license plates that didn't match the make of the car, raising suspicions. Using a robot, the bomb squad pulled out some propane tanks and a gasoline canister from the car.

The evening performance of "The Lion King" was canceled according to the show's Twitter account, and both "God of Carnage" and "A Behanding in Spokane" each began 30 minutes late, show officials said.

Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey attended the musical "Fela!" at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on West 49th Street, and the production began on time and wasn't interrupted, according to a show spokesman.

At around 8 p.m., Lucy Liu, one of the stars of "God of Carnage," walked toward the police barricade on the corner of 45th Street and Eighth Avenue to ask police officers what had happened.

Hundreds of others did the same.

"It sounded like a deeper gun shot," said Ivan Morrison, 19, who was in town from Vermont to see "The Addams Family."

Telecharge and Ticketmaster said they would offer theater-goers tickets for shows midweek, but that didn't appease some tourists.

"I've only got tonight and tomorrow in New York. It's very disappointing," said Annie Monks, 50, visiting from Australia. She was there to see "God of Carnage" but couldn't get in.

Elena Ferraras, 32, and Virginia Moreno, 38, tourists from Madrid, were unable to return to their hotel, the Paramount, on 46th Street.

Larry Franklin, 56, a street vendor said a friend called him about a man on 45th Street, who parked on the corner of 47th and Fifth Avenue and put the keys in a black SUV and walked away. His friend told him smoke began coming out of the back and police rushed to the scene. His friend said he reported the incident to the police station in Times Square.

Matthew Fox, 44, a street vendor walked north along Seventh Avenue between 45th and 46th when he heard a small explosion about 100 feet away closer to 45th Street.

"I looked back and boom," he said. "Everyone started running and women started screaming."

"I was 10 blocks away from 9/11 when it happened," Fox said, "and this wasn't anything like that."

Around 9:15, police began letting ticketholders along 46th Street walk toward the theaters. Hotel guests were still not permitted to enter or leave.

From a recent news alert:

The New York Police Department has confirmed a suspicious vehicle in Times Square contained car bomb with three propane tanks and two gas tanks.

I wonder what the deal was --- a domestic terrorist? Islamic terrorist? Something different? Accidental (unlikely, it looks like)?

[Master of Ossus]

Different articles, so I merged rather than locking.

[Superboy]

How much damage could three propane tanks and two gas tanks have caused if this thing went off successfully?

[General Zod]

How much damage could three propane tanks and two gas tanks have caused if this thing went off successfully?

Depends on how quickly they contained the fire, I suspect. Most of the damage would have probably been dead pedestrians from the blast and shrapnel.

[Isolder74]

How much damage could three propane tanks and two gas tanks have caused if this thing went off successfully?

Depends what was in the gas tanks. The propane tanks might have something else in them but the gas tanks are so able to be loaded with something other then gasoline. If they had Nitroglycerin in them then it might not be very pretty.

[d'Artagnan]

Depends what was in the gas tanks. The propane tanks might have something else in them but the gas tanks are so able to be loaded with something other then gasoline. If they had Nitroglycerin in them then it might not be very pretty.

I don't know how much effort it would take to refill a propane canister by yourself, but I doubt they were filled with Nitroglycerin, since it would have exploded if they hit a pot hole or stopped too suddenly.

[Sea Skimmer]

The idea might have that blackpowder makes the gasoline burn, thus overheating and bursting the propane tanks to make an actual explosion. It’s pretty hard to make propane tanks explode unless you heat them intensively, or have a serious high explosive as a trigger. Nitroglycerin or another high explosive is possible, but I’d bet any powder was blackpowder which you can freely buy. Shows though, that if someone does want to do a car bombing almost nothing is going to stop them from trying, but we have done a fairly good job on curbing peoples ability to make explosives.

[CJvR]

How much damage could three propane tanks and two gas tanks have caused if this thing went off successfully?

One Exploding propane tank...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ZLefQC_oU

[Broomstick]

How much damage could three propane tanks and two gas tanks have caused if this thing went off successfully?

A lot.

Aside from the fireball and concussive forces, which are enough to kill if you're close enough, the SUV would have been converted to flying shrapnel. In addition, broken window glass and other debris would also potentially become lethal projectiles.

As the Mythbusters clip shows, though, propane tanks are pretty damn tough - normal bullets can dent them but not rupture them. I heard on the news that fireworks were used in this would-be car bomb, which isn't pure black powder and, while certainly explosive in the sense of highly rapid combustion they aren't industrial or military grade. Diesel fuel and fertilizer would have probably been more effective, but of course we monitor who buys large quantities of those two substances now.

Definitely not planned and built by demolition experts. Thank god for that.

[Kuroji]

More importantly, since the vehicle was not converted into shrapnel, the police and the feds will take it apart, harvest every bit of data they can get out of it, and track down exactly where it came from. I'm sure there will be surveillance data of the vehicle as well, which means they'll not only get pictures off of that, but track it backward. Maybe they'll get a good idea of the direction this vehicle arrived from.

And if they weren't stupid enough to steal the vehicle to do it and they're the owner, well... I can pretty much guarantee that they've already checked the VIN and had an awful lot of words with the people it was registered to, if they weren't arrested outright.

[Stuart Mackey]

.

Definitely not planned and built by demolition experts. Thank god for that.

My concern would be that they will now go looking for advice from said experts now that they have learned their limitations.
Of course, I am sure that the relevant agencies will be looking rather closely at things pertinent to this.

[Kuroji]

It may be because I read too many of the FBI's 'for police info' publishings when I get bored at work, but I can think of at least three things off the top of my head that would make a much more potent boom than propane, and possibly a lot more cost-effective at that. It's nothing to screw around with in any event, but I'm guessing this isn't a sleeper cell or something, just some dipshit who's pissed at New York City or the feds.

[Zed Snardbody]

Well don't forget those idiots in Scotland a couple years back with the SUV full of propane tanks at the airport.

[Alphawolf55]

Interesting, I was thinking of going to event in Time Square last night but decided not to.

[CJvR]

Well don't forget those idiots in Scotland a couple years back with the SUV full of propane tanks at the airport.

Those idiots who slow roasted themselves? LOL! Who can forget those morons, to bad all terrorist aren't at their level then the greatest danger would be to die of laughter.

[Liberty]

I find the contrast between this and McVeigh interesting. McVeigh knew exactly what he was doing, and created a top-notch and extremely deadly bomb. He was definitely an expert. In contrast, whoever did this clearly didn't know what he was doing. If he'd had McVeigh's bomb making know how, we'd be reading a very different article.

I am curious who did this, though, and why. I can see this story going in a number of different directions (was it domestic or foreign? right or left? neither? loner or not? etc).

[Broomstick]

McVeigh had military training - which is no guarantee of smarts or planning ability but in some instances provides ability civilians don't normally have - and did not work alone. Also, back in his day it was easier to build a fuel-fertilizer bomb. It's not impossible now, but more difficult due to tight controls on the source supplies.

We don't know who attempted this, whether it was a lone nutball or a group, but they don't seem to have quite the same knowledge base.

Interestingly, McVeigh was eventually tracked down via the VIN stamped onto one of the truck debris.

Oh, and as to the wannabe terrorists in Scotland....here's Adam Hills and a comedic take on that incident, along with attempted bombings in London.

[Sky Captain]

Is it that hard to buy a fertilizer in US that wannabe car bombers have to resort to less efficient substances? At least here you can freely buy a fertilizer in any shop selling gardening stuff. Also there are plenty of instructions on the internet how to make a fuel - fertilizer bomb.

[Mayabird]

It's not just buying a sack of fertilizer; it's buying fertilizer in large enough quantities to make an explosion that's the issue, and that's been monitored since the Oklahoma City bombing. There have been a number of other cases where people tried to make fertilizer-fuel bombs later but were stopped when law enforcement noted that they were buying a lot of it.

[Aaron]

Is it that hard to buy a fertilizer in US that wannabe car bombers have to resort to less efficient substances? At least here you can freely buy a fertilizer in any shop selling gardening stuff. Also there are plenty of instructions on the internet how to make a fuel - fertilizer bomb.

I think the guys at your local garden shop are going to raise a few eyebrows if you come up to the cash register with 500 lbs of the stuff. Just like if I go and order 500 lbs of blackpowder from the local shop.

[Isolder74]

Depends what was in the gas tanks. The propane tanks might have something else in them but the gas tanks are so able to be loaded with something other then gasoline. If they had Nitroglycerin in them then it might not be very pretty.

I don't know how much effort it would take to refill a propane canister by yourself, but I doubt they were filled with Nitroglycerin, since it would have exploded if they hit a pot hole or stopped too suddenly.

I was talking about the gas cans. Nitro isn't as drop the hat explosive as you think it is. It is volatile but not as much as Hollywood would tell you it is. The World Trade Center bombing included homemade Nitro.

[Sky Captain]

Is it that hard to buy a fertilizer in US that wannabe car bombers have to resort to less efficient substances? At least here you can freely buy a fertilizer in any shop selling gardening stuff. Also there are plenty of instructions on the internet how to make a fuel - fertilizer bomb.

I think the guys at your local garden shop are going to raise a few eyebrows if you come up to the cash register with 500 lbs of the stuff. Just like if I go and order 500 lbs of blackpowder from the local shop.

Well, just few weeks ago my mother asked me to buy a 35 kg sack of fertilizer for garden and no one showed any suspicion. I suppose if I had bought 10 such sacks then they might ask why I need so much. But If I wanted to make a big fertilizer bomb I would buy the needed amount over time in different shops to not cause any suspicion.

[Temujin]

With the anger towards Wall Street, I wouldn't have been surprised to see something like this happen there. Times Square however makes me wonder. I personally feel its more likely to be domestic Tea Baggers than Islamic terrorists, what with the political climate and all.

[Broomstick]

Is it that hard to buy a fertilizer in US that wannabe car bombers have to resort to less efficient substances? At least here you can freely buy a fertilizer in any shop selling gardening stuff. Also there are plenty of instructions on the internet how to make a fuel - fertilizer bomb.

It's not just buying a sack of fertilizer; it's buying fertilizer in large enough quantities to make an explosion that's the issue, and that's been monitored since the Oklahoma City bombing. There have been a number of other cases where people tried to make fertilizer-fuel bombs later but were stopped when law enforcement noted that they were buying a lot of it.

I think the guys at your local garden shop are going to raise a few eyebrows if you come up to the cash register with 500 lbs of the stuff. Just like if I go and order 500 lbs of blackpowder from the local shop.

Well, just few weeks ago my mother asked me to buy a 35 kg sack of fertilizer for garden and no one showed any suspicion. I suppose if I had bought 10 such sacks then they might ask why I need so much. But If I wanted to make a big fertilizer bomb I would buy the needed amount over time in different shops to not cause any suspicion.

I think something needs to be clarified here.

The fertilizer you buy in a gardening store is NOT what we're talking about here. The fertilizer used in ANFO explosives is ammonium nitrate in a fairly pure form. That requires some gear to handle safely. A couple years ago a local yahoo tried to steal some from a local farmer (farmers are allowed to use this on commercial farms, it's a major use of the chemical) and was caught because he managed to spill enough on him to cause injury. By the time the cops showed up he was physically unable to stand up, much less run away. It's an industrial chemical that can cause health problems and yes, it is explosive.

The stuff you buy at the store might have some ammonium nitrate in it, but it's not the pure stuff. Especially if it's the "ready to spread" variety that requires no dilution or preparation.