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August 10, 2006

Terror plot: URI expert says '100s of molecules' are explosive

The British authorities have been vague enough on the type of liquid explosives that were suspected in the bomb plot that a URI chemistry professor and explosives expert says it's difficult to know yet exactly what the ingredients were -- and whether they were something common enough not to be detected.

There are many types of liquid explosives -- Timothy McVeigh used fuel oil and fertilizer to explode a Ryder truck parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 -- says URI professor Jimmie Oxley. "Truthfully, there are hundreds of molecules that are explosive, just as there are hundreds of molecules that are sweet," she said today.

The professor has served on committees for the National Research Council in studying airport security. While bottle-screening equipment is being developed and becoming available since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Oxley said the technology still isn't perfect. But she predicts the technology will be pressed to improve soon, because of the thwarted plot in the United Kingdom.

The plot "doesn't surprise me," Oxley said. "It makes me really sad."

The first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993, broke down the barrier that the United States was invulnerable, she said.

"Mankind can always figure out how to be nasty," Oxley said.

-- Journal staff writer Amanda Milkovits

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 12:27 PM | Permalink

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