Plastic explosives seen as most likely material
Alok Jha Friday July 8, 2005 The Guardian Scientists with expertise in bomb chemistry speculated yesterday that the most likely material deployed in the attacks was plastic explosive. Though a huge range of chemicals is available to terrorists, plastic explosives have been the weapon of choice for many such groups in recent years because they can be made small while retaining a high explosive power. "These are small, high intensity explosives and, inevitably, they are military type explosives, like charges you would put into blowing up small structures," said Hans Michels, a professor of chemical engineering at Imperial College, London, and an expert in explosives. For a terror group using suicide bombers, plastic explosives are perfect. Neil Fisher, a scientist at defence company Qinetiq who models explosions, agreed. "There's home-made explosive, which has been the IRA's trademark for some time, but al-Qaida have tended to use straightforward plastic explosives," he said. One of the most notorious plastic explosives, and the one which sparked the rise in their use, is Semtex. It was initially developed by Czech mining engineers the 1960s to blast rocks from quarries but became popular with terrorist groups because, until recently, it was extremely difficult to detect. "Unfortunately on the black market, it is extremely available," said Prof Michels. With a consistency of stiff putty, plastic explosives are malleable and easy to cut into any shape. They are also simple to operate: an igniter pen is inserted and used to trigger the explosion. The pen can be triggered remotely - from a mobile phone, for example. The amount of explosive used is hard to gauge but Prof Michels said that the power of the Russell Square blast must have been significant. Mr Fisher said that the blasts on the London underground were likely to have caused most damage to the trains rather than the tunnels. "These tunnels are pretty strong. 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