Explosives

[Petronas]

No Leads, No Suspects In Stolen Explosives
UPDATED: 7:30 pm MST December 20, 2005

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Federal investigators have joined with Albuquerque police and state police in the hunt for hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives stolen Sunday at a secure Albuquerque storage facility. Also missing are 2,500 blasting caps, 250 pounds of deta sheets and an undetermined length of explosive detonation cords. Deta sheets are especially dangerous. They can be hidden in books or letters and cannot be spotted by a metal detector. Engineers use them for detonation.

The director of the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency in New Mexico, Wayne Dixie, said the materials are highly explosive. In the hands of those who know how to use it, there is enough explosive material to level a building, Dixie said.

Authorities are offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information that helps them recover the stolen goods, which burglars used a blowtorch to bars to get to. Dixie said authorities have no leads and no suspects.

The materials are owned by Cherry Engineering, Inc., a federally certified explosives storage facility in compliance with ATF regulations, Dixie said. The site was inspected weekly. Chris Cherry, who owns the engineering company, is a scientist responsible for many innovations in explosives disruption. He's also an employee of Sandia National Laboratories. His techniques are used by police bomb squads, ABC News reported. "It is a very dangerous material, we want to keep this off the streets," Cherry said.

While Cherry works for Sandia, the explosives were not stolen from a Sandia Lab facility. "Cherry is a research scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, and owns a business that is not affiliated with Sandia," according to an official lab news release.

Gov. Bill Richardson, who learned of the theft Sunday night, recommended not jumping to conclusions about public safety. He said there is the possibility the explosives were taken simply so they could be sold. "We don't think there is a threat to New Mexico, we think it may be somebody trying to make a profit or somebody that has a mental problem, but we don't know, so it's important that we move fast," said Richardson.

Action 7 News asked ATF if they plan on upping security or changing policies after the theft. You may be surprised by the answer. "The standards aren't gonna change," one official said. "The regulations ATF has in place have been proven over a period of time that they work." There are no security cameras, no guards, and only a fence covered in warning signs at the site of the crime." There are 84 sites statewide like the one thieves targeted and all have similar security regulations.

As of now, current ATF regulations read like this:

First, businesses must have storage units for the explosive materials that meet federal standards.

Second, companies must keep detailed, up-to-date records, including keeping inventory of the explosives.

Lastly, if any of the materials are missing or stolen, the company must report it to local, state and federal authorities within 24 hours.

http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/news/5585322/detail.html

[Petronas]

Since I made this a new thread, I'll add this story from last year.

Theft of explosives called well planned
Thursday, July 8, 2004

The thieves who stole 200 pounds of high explosives from a police storage depot on the Peninsula were well organized and efficient, defeating a series of fences, locks and alarms to make off with devices that could cause substantial damage, authorities said Wednesday. The explosives were stolen from a storage complex near the Crystal Springs Reservoir west of Interstate 280 over the July Fourth weekend, said Marti McKee, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The thieves had to break into five locked steel containers to make off with the explosives belonging to the San Francisco Police Department and the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department. The explosives included 30 to 35 pounds of C4 plastic explosive and 114 pounds of military binary explosives, which combine two substances to create an explosive device, McKee said. The thieves also stole 700 detonation cords, 75 feet of detonation sheets and 800 to 900 blasting caps, McKee said.

San Mateo County Sheriff Don Horsley said the perpetrators were apparently well-equipped and knew what they were taking. While they stole all the high-powered explosives stored at the depot, they left behind a number of more benign fireworks, he said. Horsley said the thieves not only had learned of the depot's secret location but were extremely proficient, using acetylene torches to break into the steel, concrete-reinforced bunkers. "The perpetrators had to go through a couple of fences, a series of locks, and we had an alarm, and they managed to get beyond the alarm," Horsley said. "This is a very serious loss for us." The explosives that were stolen had either been confiscated by police or used during training drills, McKee said.

The theft was discovered Tuesday morning by a visiting agent from the FBI, which also uses the area. Horsley said a sheriff's deputy had visited the site Saturday but had seen nothing amiss. He said patrols of the site by his department had been curtailed in recent years because of budget cuts. FBI spokeswoman LaRae Quy said the agency was assisting in the investigation and was trying to determine whether the theft was the work of terrorists. "It's a concern," she said. "We don't know who's responsible. We don't know how they came upon the information. We don't know how they accomplished this."

Explosives expert Van Romero, president of research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, said the sophistication of the break-in should be a great concern to investigators. "It could be something like domestic terrorism, attacks on abortion clinics or environmental terrorism," Romero said. "But after Sept. 11, you have to look at the possibility that this is part of a larger terrorist effort to gain access to explosives for a bigger plan. You can't rule out any of that."

The amount of explosives stolen is similar to what is typically used in car bombs in Iraq and Israel and could cause a significant number of injuries or deaths even if separated into smaller bombs, Romero said. A great deal more explosives would be needed to bring down a large structure, Romero said. The federal building in Oklahoma City, for example, was destroyed in 1995 with about 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. This is not the first time the Peninsula depot has been raided. The site was burglarized in 1990 in what may have been an inside job, Horsley said. No one was arrested.

San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, a former San Francisco police inspector, said the latest theft was troubling and pointed to a need for improved security at the site. "We have to protect that better, however we do that," he said. "We don't have money for guards 24 hours a day, but we need some sort of better surveillance on a property like this."

Thefts of explosives are not uncommon, McKee said. She said 6,700 pounds of explosives had been stolen last year nationwide; eight such thefts occurred in California. In most cases, however, thieves focus on mining and construction companies, which use explosives to clear land or open mines. In the past four years, there have been at least three major explosives thefts at construction and mining companies in Northern California, including one in 2002 in which 700 pounds were stolen near the Oregon border. No one has been arrested in that case.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/08/EXPLOSIVES.TMP

[Petronas]

Since I made this a new thread, I'll add this story from last year.

Theft of explosives called well planned
Thursday, July 8, 2004

The thieves who stole 200 pounds of high explosives from a police storage depot on the Peninsula were well organized and efficient, defeating a series of fences, locks and alarms to make off with devices that could cause substantial damage, authorities said Wednesday. The explosives were stolen from a storage complex near the Crystal Springs Reservoir west of Interstate 280 over the July Fourth weekend, said Marti McKee, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The thieves had to break into five locked steel containers to make off with the explosives belonging to the San Francisco Police Department and the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department. The explosives included 30 to 35 pounds of C4 plastic explosive and 114 pounds of military binary explosives, which combine two substances to create an explosive device, McKee said. The thieves also stole 700 detonation cords, 75 feet of detonation sheets and 800 to 900 blasting caps, McKee said.

San Mateo County Sheriff Don Horsley said the perpetrators were apparently well-equipped and knew what they were taking. While they stole all the high-powered explosives stored at the depot, they left behind a number of more benign fireworks, he said. Horsley said the thieves not only had learned of the depot's secret location but were extremely proficient, using acetylene torches to break into the steel, concrete-reinforced bunkers. "The perpetrators had to go through a couple of fences, a series of locks, and we had an alarm, and they managed to get beyond the alarm," Horsley said. "This is a very serious loss for us." The explosives that were stolen had either been confiscated by police or used during training drills, McKee said.

The theft was discovered Tuesday morning by a visiting agent from the FBI, which also uses the area. Horsley said a sheriff's deputy had visited the site Saturday but had seen nothing amiss. He said patrols of the site by his department had been curtailed in recent years because of budget cuts. FBI spokeswoman LaRae Quy said the agency was assisting in the investigation and was trying to determine whether the theft was the work of terrorists. "It's a concern," she said. "We don't know who's responsible. We don't know how they came upon the information. We don't know how they accomplished this."

Explosives expert Van Romero, president of research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, said the sophistication of the break-in should be a great concern to investigators. "It could be something like domestic terrorism, attacks on abortion clinics or environmental terrorism," Romero said. "But after Sept. 11, you have to look at the possibility that this is part of a larger terrorist effort to gain access to explosives for a bigger plan. You can't rule out any of that."

The amount of explosives stolen is similar to what is typically used in car bombs in Iraq and Israel and could cause a significant number of injuries or deaths even if separated into smaller bombs, Romero said. A great deal more explosives would be needed to bring down a large structure, Romero said. The federal building in Oklahoma City, for example, was destroyed in 1995 with about 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. This is not the first time the Peninsula depot has been raided. The site was burglarized in 1990 in what may have been an inside job, Horsley said. No one was arrested.

San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, a former San Francisco police inspector, said the latest theft was troubling and pointed to a need for improved security at the site. "We have to protect that better, however we do that," he said. "We don't have money for guards 24 hours a day, but we need some sort of better surveillance on a property like this."

Thefts of explosives are not uncommon, McKee said. She said 6,700 pounds of explosives had been stolen last year nationwide; eight such thefts occurred in California. In most cases, however, thieves focus on mining and construction companies, which use explosives to clear land or open mines. In the past four years, there have been at least three major explosives thefts at construction and mining companies in Northern California, including one in 2002 in which 700 pounds were stolen near the Oregon border. No one has been arrested in that case.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/08/EXPLOSIVES.TMP

[Petronas]

4 Men Arrested in Stolen Explosives Case
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Dec 24, 2005

Authorities arrested four men and were searching for one more person in connection with the theft of 400 pounds of explosives enough to flatten a large building from a storage depot. All of the explosives and detonating materials were recovered, and there was no evidence to suggest the theft was connected to terrorism, said Wayne Dixie of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Two brothers, Leslie Brown, 44, of Ignacio, Colo., and David Brown, 49, of Bloomfield, face federal charges that include possession of stolen explosives and felons in possession of explosives, Dixie said.

Authorities gave few other details, including the names of the other two people arrested Friday. A tip led to the arrests. "Investigators are still interviewing these people that are involved so we don't have all the answers yet," Dixie said. The explosives were reported missing Sunday from Cherry Engineering's storage depot eight miles southwest of Albuquerque. Federal authorities said the explosives are enough to flatten a large building. Stolen were 150 pounds of C-4, 250 pounds of sheet explosives, 20,000 feet of detonator cord and 2,500 blasting caps.

The explosives were intact and it did not appear that anyone had tried to use the material, authorities said. Authorities said the brothers did not have experience to use the explosives. Investigators said they were continuing a search of a storage facility south of Bloomfield, where most of the explosives were found. Some of the material also was found in Ignacio and another location in Bloomfield. Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White said there was a "collective sigh of relief" when authorities were notified that the explosives had been located.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1439535

[Petronas]

Teabags in 21/7 bomb - jury told
Friday, 9 March 2007, 19:03 GMT

Teabags and artificial nail remover were used to make explosive devices designed to blow up parts of the London transport system, a court heard.
Woolwich Crown Court was told that the July 21 terror suspects made TATP explosive in kitchen pans and stored it in a sideboard at one of their homes. The TATP was allegedly used as the detonator for bombs made of hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour.

Six defendants deny conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions. Manfo Asiedu, Muktar Ibrahim, Hussein Osman, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Adel Yahya are accused of carrying out the failed attacks as part of an extremist Muslim plot.

The head of the Forensic Explosives Laboratory in Kent said the events on July 21 were immediately compared to those of two weeks before when 52 people died. Clifford Todd, principal forensic investigator, was in charge of dealing with the unknown explosive material. When first alerted to the four scenes of crime he said there was very little scientific evidence to go on. "Uppermost in our minds were the events of July 7. At that time we were reasonably sure that hydrogen peroxide and organic fuels were concerned in that case. It looked as though it might be similar, but we had no actual evidence."

The forensic specialist, who has 20 years of experience, said he had never come across hydrogen peroxide-based bombs before. Mr Todd took the decision to destroy the bulk of the unexploded material because it was considered so dangerous. He told the court one colleague had died and another was seriously injured in the past when dealing with similar "novel" devices. The majority of the charge, described as a yellow gelatinous mass, was destroyed at a site in Biggin Hill, Kent.

Earlier Keith Ritchie, from the Forensic Explosives Laboratory in Fort Halstead, Kent, told the jury he had found traces of TATP [triacetone triperoxide] at Mr Mohammed's home in west London. He discovered 411 nanograms in the plumbing tubes running out from the kitchen sink. One nanogram is the equivalent of a 1,000 millionth of a gram, the jury was told. Mr Ritchie said TATP was a primary high explosive which, although not commercially available, could be made from a mix of hydrogen peroxide and acetone to which acid is added.

Scientists were shown a photograph of a plastic squeezy bottle found in Mr Omar's flat - the alleged "bomb factory" at Curtis House, New Southgate, north London. Evidence of green sulphuric acid was found in the bottle, which had a special nozzle attached.

George Carter-Stephenson, defence counsel for Mr Ibrahim, said the acetone the defendants had used was taken from an artificial nail remover solution with the brand name Pretty Woman. He argued the acetone was not as pure as that used by the laboratory and therefore not as effective. Mr Ritchie told the court the efficiency of the TATP could also be affected by hot weather.

The trial was adjourned until Monday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6435195.stm

[al-Canine]

This is not news, but it looks like it would be good reading for anyone interested in explosives.

BOOK REVIEW

Behind the scenes of the N.Y. bomb squad

Bomb Squad A Year Inside the Nation's Most Exclusive Police Unit
Richard Esposito and Ted Gerstein Hyperion: 336 pp., $24.95

By Wayne Barrett
March 9, 2007

RICHARD ESPOSITO has the hard edge of a street-smart detective, but all he's armed with is a reporter's notebook. The longtime TV and tabloid cop-shop groupie never fires blanks. In "Bomb Squad: A Year Inside the Nation's Most Exclusive Police Unit," ABC News reporters Esposito and Ted Gerstein go undercover with New York City's death-defusers for a year and hit one bull's-eye after another. They narrate a street saga so visual it could become the pilot for the next "24"-style TV show.

"Bomb Squad" is a tense tour of a century of potentially explosive events that draws us close enough to see skillful fingers probing one "suspicious package" after another, yet far enough away to feel protected.

The timing for this unique look inside the world of the bomb-busters could not be better. The former head of the CIA's now disbanded Osama bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, said last month in an interview on MSNBC that a "regrouped" Al Qaeda and Taliban "are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States." The authors introduce us to robots, containment vessels, 90-pound suits of armor, ergonomic helmets, the Army's 300-acre Hazardous Devices School, handheld X-ray devices and "backscatter vans" whose X-ray fields can penetrate thick walls in search of weapon dumps.

The nuclear threat that Scheuer warns of was already a familiar fact to the 33-member elite New York Police Department unit that welcomed Esposito and Gerstein for 365 days in 2004. "Bomb Squad" reveals that a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA was warning that Al Qaeda had "procured or made a nuclear weapon or weapons" that were "being smuggled or already in place" in Washington, New York City or both. During the weeks of the alert, bomb squad commander Jerry "Pappy" Sheehan walked around with a briefcase cuffed to his wrist.

The NYPD was told that the feds had only one team and one "cutter" trained to defuse any bomb, so the squad would have to handle one discovered in New York. Four of the squad's senior officers volunteered "to disarm a device knowing full well they would almost certainly die, even if they succeeded in saving the city of New York."

In retelling the 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing stories, the book almost incidentally, without fanfare, indicts former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose presidential campaign is making the threat of terrorism a central theme.

Although Giuliani is barely mentioned, the "failure to act on what was learned after the blast" in 1993, when he was elected mayor, was an "inexcusable" error in "critical … management and response to potential mass casualty" incidents," Esposito and Gerstein conclude.

"It was as if no one had read" the damning fire department reports after the first bombing, they lament, adding that all the same deadly problems came back to haunt the 9/11 first responders. Like the "few scattered flakes of snow" that fell that day, "the event's significance quickly melted away."

Similarly, the authors avoid any conclusions about the endless false alarms that emanate from the Bush administration's intelligence apparatus, although the current squad commander, Lt. Mark Torre, declares that "virtually every dollar spent on Homeland Security has been a dollar wasted."

If the bomb-busters look more often like ghost-busters, chasing chimerical threats, Esposito and Gerstein are too apolitical to let the squad say why. Their only explicit foray into presidential politics is the extraordinary tale of the FALN, the Puerto Rican nationalists whose bombs maimed two squad members, blinded another cop, killed four diners at Fraunces Tavern, and left a trail of unparalleled American carnage in the 1970s and 1980s. They angrily denounce President Clinton's 1999 decision to pardon 16 FALN terrorists but fail to explain that his wife was courting New York Latinos in her 2000 U.S. Senate race.

The FALN attacks are just part of the fascinating chronology of bomb squad battles, starting with its founding in 1903, when it was called the "Italian Squad," set up to stop the extortion bombings of the "Black Hand," a secret society of Italian thugs. When its first commander, Giuseppe Petrosino, was killed in Sicily, more than 200,000 people went to his funeral in New York.

The tales stretch through the killing of two squad detectives by the Irish Republican Army, infiltrating a German plot to bomb ships in New York Harbor, the key role two squad members played in tracking the first World Trade Center bombers and the 2,500 bomb runs the squad makes a year.

Predictably, the embedded authors traded accolades for access, the only door-opener into a paramilitary universe. So everyone in "Bomb Squad" is a hero all the time, even though Esposito and Gerstein's year on the job consisted of tame stuff and they don't report seeing any significant bomb threats. "Why do bomb technicians" — as the authors say squad members prefer to be called — "stand over these devices so willingly? Thirty-three times that question was asked of the NYPD Bomb Squad members and thirty-three times the … member's answer was the same: 'Somebody has to do it.' "

In fact, contrary to this mantra, half the squad quit shortly after 9/11, it's quietly noted elsewhere in the text, because overtime pay had so fattened their pensions that they were able to collect their maximum payout for life. "Security and family came first" is how Esposito and Gerstein explain it. These mass retirements meant that a mostly rookie bomb squad guarded the city when New Yorkers were seeing Al Qaeda lurking in every shadow.

But no one can deny that most of what the squad does is circumspect heroism — sublimating danger, celebrating will. "[A] pocketknife and a prayer" is another mantra of the trade, when all the high-tech flash is reduced to a duel with a wire. "Since 9/11," FBI Supervisory Agent Dave Jernigan tells the authors, "everybody wants a bomb squad. I think there is some kind of security blanket feeling that they've got somebody who they can call to take care of things right away."

Esposito and Gerstein, by bringing us inside the bomb squad members' daily lives, show them to be an indispensable and, until now, invisible layer of protection, people who still need every new resource but are committed to bravely serve.

Wayne Barrett, a senior editor at the Village Voice, is co-author of "Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11."

Los Angeles Times CalendarLive (http://www.calendarlive.com/books/reviews/cl-et-book9mar09,0,518604.story?coll=cl-books-reviews
)

[al-Canine]

Explosives Are Missing From Mine in Arizona

SALT LAKE CITY, March 9 — Law enforcement officials are searching for hundreds of pounds of missing explosives material of the type used in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Dozens of bags filled with ammonium nitrate and clearly marked “explosives” and “blasting agent” in large letters were stolen in October and again last month from a mining site near St. George, Utah, federal and local officials said.

“A single pound would blow up a car,” said Sgt. Craig Harding of the St. George Police Department. “These bags were 30 to 50 pounds each, so you can imagine what this could do.”

The materials were stored in a trailerlike bunker, or magazine, at a gypsum mining site jointly operated by two companies in the Black Rock area of sparsely populated Mohave County, Ariz., a few miles to the south of St. George.

Truck tire marks were visible nearby after each of the thefts, which took place at night, Sergeant Harding said.

Sergeant Harding declined to provide information about the type or size of truck used. He also would not make public the number of bags stolen, the names of the companies or the dates of the thefts.

The thieves are thought to be from the Washington County, Utah, area or St. George, the metropolitan core of southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona and southeastern Nevada.

“We’re not limiting it to kids making pipe bombs or terrorists,” Sergeant Harding said. “There’s a whole gamut.”

Lori Dyer, the resident agent in charge of the Salt Lake City field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said thefts of explosives materials were relatively rare.

“This investigation is about who would want it and who would need it,” Agent Dyer said of the ammonium nitrate, which in addition to mining is used in construction and as fertilizer.

“Since Oklahoma City, we’ve tightened regulations of this, and we really do take this seriously,” she said.

Agent Dyer said the mining companies might also be audited for compliance with federal procedures for security, storage and record keeping of explosives.

If “several egregious failures” are found, she said, the companies could face a variety of sanctions, which include revocation of their licenses to use explosives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/us/10explosives.html?

[Petronas]

Prosecutor: Australian terror suspects bought chemicals, downloaded instructions for bomb making
10:35 a.m. March 6, 2007

Nine men accused of Australia's largest terrorist conspiracy downloaded bomb-making instructions off the Internet and stockpiled chemicals to make lethal explosives because they believed Islam was under attack, a state prosecutor said Tuesday. The nine were devotees of a radical Muslim cleric sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, and struck a pact to launch a terrorist attack because they felt their religion was under threat and needed to be defended at any cost, a pre-trial hearing heard Tuesday.

They were arrested in a series of 2005 raids in Sydney and the southern city of Melbourne, where cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika and other followers were also detained and now face separate charges of belonging to a terrorist group. The nine men were formally indicted Tuesday on one charge each of conspiring between June 2004 and November 2005 to carry out a terrorist act.

A police report released at the time of the arrests listed Australia's only nuclear reactor, the Lucas Heights facility near Sydney used to make radioactive medical supplies, as a possible target. The reactor was not mentioned in Tuesday's hearing.

None of the suspects, who face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted, entered a plea. The purpose of the hearing, expected to last weeks, was to allow the judge to decide whether there is enough evidence to send the men to a jury trial.

Prosecutor Wendy Abraham said the suspects had obtained large amounts of industrial chemicals that could be used in bomb-making, including hydrochloric and citric acids, glycerin, acetone and brake fluid. They also had detonators and laboratory equipment such as beakers and rubber tubing to mix and store chemicals, and documents that were “extremist in nature,” Abraham said.

“They believed Islam was under attack,” Abraham told the court. “Violence was the primary tool of their jihad.” Attorneys for the men did not comment Tuesday but have said they nine are innocent.

During a June 2005 raid on the house of one suspect, Mohammed Ali Elomar, authorities found a computer memory stick containing a 60-page document in Arabic that included instructions on how to make bombs and how to hide explosives near restaurants and government buildings, Abraham said. The instructions included how to make TATP, the explosive used in the deadly 2005 London subway bombings that can be made from bleach, drain cleaner and acetone paint thinner, she said.

At the homes of two other suspects, Khaled Cheikho and Mirsad Mulahalilovic, authorities found magazines and press releases from al-Qaeda, videos of people being beheaded and transcripts of speeches by bin Laden, Abraham said. The prosecution alleges the nine men were in routine contact with each other about the alleged plot, using mobile phones registered with fake names to communicate by encoded text messages.

Two of the suspects, Abdul Rakib Hasan and Khaled Sharrouf, allegedly used a mobile phone to arrange a meeting with Benbrika, the prominent Muslim cleric known for praising bin Laden as a “great man.” During the meeting in Melbourne, Benbrika allegedly told the men they should be prepared to die. “Everyone has to prepare to die or be jailed, but we have to be careful,” Abraham quoted him as saying. “If we want to die for jihad, we have to do maximum damage, maximum damage.”

Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, pleaded not guilty in December to directing the group's activities and possessing a CD related to planning a terrorist act. Mazen Touma, Omar Baladjam, Mustafa Cheikho and Mohammed Jamal are the other suspects.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the national spy agency, has requested that parts of the proceedings be closed to the public for national security reasons.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070306-1035-australia-terroristplot.html

[al-Canine]

Material to make bombs is stolen

Explosives capable of causing "extensive damage" have been stolen from a St. Charles County firing range used by the sheriff's office and the FBI, federal officials said Tuesday.

Officials are still trying to determine how much dynamite, C-4 and other
explosives were taken and exactly who was responsible.

Mike Schmitz of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said investigators believe more than one person was involved in the theft, but it is too early to know the intent of the thieves, including whether terrorism could be involved.

The theft, discovered by the FBI on Tuesday, happened sometime in the past 10 days.

The explosives, including C-4, dynamite and safety fuse, were being stored at the St. Charles County training center and firearms range at 1835 South Highway 94, Schmitz said. The range is located in a rural area.

They were stored properly in the federally approved storage magazine, which resembles a large construction Dumpster, Schmitz said.

The metal explosives magazine where the materials were stored is used by the FBI and the sheriff's office for training and for rendering other explosives or suspected explosives safe, Schmitz said.

"These items are all extremely dangerous," Schmitz said.

Dynamite is a nitroglycerin-based high explosive. C-4 is a military-grade
plastic explosive, more powerful than TNT, that has been used by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

C-4 was the explosive used in the destroyer Cole attack in 2000, a suicide
bombing that killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens of others while the ship was in a Yemeni port. Terrorists used it in 1996 to blow up an American military housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Air Force servicemen. Hundreds were injured.

It was also the substance in the shoe of attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid, convicted of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Investigators said they are taking the theft seriously.

"Anytime any explosives are in the hands of the wrong people, we're concerned about it, and were working closely with all area law enforcement to try and locate the stuff," said FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tom Noble. "Obviously, we take this very seriously."

Investigators were still at the site Tuesday evening.

Noble said that the thief or thieves somehow got past the locks. Another storage building was not touched, Schmitz said. The sheriff's office referred
calls to the ATF.

Noble said that the FBI was offering a "substantial" award for information
about the theft. Anyone with information is asked to call 314-231-4324.

Susan Weich and Greg Jonsson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stcharles/story/D58ACE075F7151F3862572F90011F21A?OpenDocument