Instilling Fear Through Dirty Bombs Essay

The Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995 is known to be the “worst act of homegrown [domestic] terrorism in the nation’s history” (FBI, 2010). On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, parked a rented box truck outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. No one knew that, “inside the vehicle was a powerful bomb made out of a deadly cocktail of agricultural fertilizer, diesel fuel, and other chemicals” (FBI, 2010). Before he exited the vehicle and headed towards his getaway car, he ignited two timed fuses – at exactly 9:02AM, the bomb exploded. The explosion killed 168 people, 19 of those being children, and injured nearly 650 (Scott, 2013).

Most famously used in the incineration of 64 Japanese cities in the1940’s, napalm scorched more to death than in the atomic explosions in Nagasaki and Hiroshima (Bernard). Many still pose the question, why napalm instead of atomic weapons? During the destruction of the Japanese landscape, each atomic detonation had a price tag of $13.5 billion while each napalm destruction was only a slim $83,000 per metropolis (Norris). Most recently, during the siege of Aleppo, the Russian and Syrian governments alike, have been accused of using these incendiary bombs in the rebel occupied area. During this siege, when civilians “see barrels falling from the sky they hope they are explosives and not napalm”

It is said that dirty bombs are also a threat. These bombs are very explosive

For the reading this week it would seem clear that at a minimum terrorist groups are very interested and motivated to gain access to a CBRN weapons or Weapon of Mass Destruction. This new focus for terrorist groups is a focus that has comes with some very real concerns for the Homeland Defense and Homeland Security industries. As, Sinai, eludes too in his work, “The Evolving Terrorist Threat: The Convergence of Terrorism, Proliferation of WMD, and Enabling Conditions in Weak and Strong States”, terrorist have a criminal network they use for fundraising. This network often includes drug trafficking, which by nature has sophisticated smuggling operations. This same network could potentially be used to smuggle proliferated CRBN weapons or Weapons

President Truman stood in the oval office full of many advisors, but was truly alone ready to make the hardest decision, which would change the world forever. Is dropping the bomb the right decision for the president to make?

Also the power of the blast of the bomb being bided on is much stronger then the nuclear bomb set off in Japan during World War 2 “The scientist who created the bomb said the power of the bomb would be bigger then anything seen in war and the scientist will only sell it to the country who promises to use it” (Thor 34), this shows that the country who gets the bomb will drop the bomb and most likely start a war because most countries have many allies and the scientist probably wants a war so that a country will hire him and let him continue his research with bombs and researching and finding a way to make bombs more powerful then the other bomb he created, which in the end would not be good thing because nuclear warfare would have many casualties in it. The bomb is significant because if it is not stopped and found it could lead to a war no one wants.

As Muslim extremists battle for supremacy, it has hindered al Qaeda's climb to power. However, the current dominate group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may be an even more dangerous foe. ISIS openly claimed in 2014, that they had retrieved 40 kilograms of uranium from the Iraqi university in Mosul. (Haines 2014, para.2) The uranium taken is not weapons grade, but could be used to construct a "dirty bomb". The means and will are in place, now it is only a matter of time until means and will are combined with expertise and execution of

The transportation sector has seen its share of terrorist activity over the years. Aircraft are under constant threat of an explosion or hijacking, and vehicles are used to transport and detonate bombs. Bombs are popular among terrorist cells, due to the amount of destruction they can cause; some are small as witness years ago with the Underwear Bomber, and some are much larger as seen with the Oklahoma City bombing. Over the years, different resources have been developed to aid with mitigating risk and help with the recovery process. One item that has been developed and tested by Mistral Security and is currently being used by police bomb squads, and the military is the explosive containment vessels. These vessels come in various sizes

On Wednesday 25th, 2017 I stop at Chevron gas station to get the gas. While I was getting the gas, I remember that the “Bomb of the week” is due tomorrow, so I got the gas, repark my car, and went inside.

On April 19, 1995 a box truck filled with explosives was parked outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building located in Oklahoma City. Shortly after 9 am the explosives in the truck were detonated resulting in over a third of the federal building collapsing and another 300 buildings received damage. Emergency crews and law enforcement quickly realized this was a deliberate and well planned attack. It was an attack that they would soon discover to be the largest act of domestic terrorism carried out in the United States that killed a total of 168 people, a number that also included 19 children, and injured hundreds more (FBI, n.d.).

IEDs are very easy to make because of their simple design and massive availability of parts needed to make them. Most, if not all IEDs are made up of the same components. A power source, which is usually something like a car battery. A trigger, like a pressure plate or remote detonator, and a main charge. The main charge is by far the most interchangeable part of an IED. Anything that is powerful and unexploded will work, this includes but is not limited to an unexploded landmine, a live tank shell or some kind of plastic explosive like C4. “Additional components

soon the website had a list of all the people they wanted to kill and the amount of guns they had in their possession. The two friends started thinking about a plan to kill as many people as they could. They began to post videos explaining what they wanted to do and that they planned to rival the Oklahoma bombing that happened a few years before them. Another one of their plans was taking over a jetliner and crashing it into a building across the country in New York city. Many times on the same website they stated their plans to flee the state and even country. The final plan they decided on was to rig bombs in the High School cafeteria and exploding them when it was at capacity, then as the survivors ran out of the school they would shoot at the mass of frantic bodies, as first responders arrived on the scene they would then set off bombs rigged to cars in the parking lot. Once they settled on this plan they began preparing. In the nearby hills they retreated to begin target practicing and learning how to set off their homemade explosives. The pair had many weapons in their possession including, Intratec TEC-DC9, Hi-point 995 carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun, 99 explosive devices, and 4 knives. The most unsettling part is that they were able to make the explosives by a quick search on the internet. Everything was set for these two teenagers to execute a plan of mass murder and to

Bomb was a good book. It taught me about the race to build the bomb and to

Weapons of mass destruction are those nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological, and high explosive weapons “that are capable of producing major destruction, mass casualties, and significant infrastructure damage” (Taylor & Swanson, 2016 P.317). The agent I choose is the biological agent of botulinum toxin. This agent can be a lethal toxin; it can cause paralysis in a person that is exposed. Once this agent is liquefied, it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Terrorist can fill bombs with botulinum toxins and even missiles. This agent can immobilize many citizens in a community or area; this agent can even kill

The abundance of nuclear weapons or radiological dispersal devices that terrorist groups have is perhaps one of the most terrifying threats to U.S. security. Radiological dispersal devices (RDD) are also known as dirty bombs. They are made of radioactive material combined with conventional explosives. They are intended to use explosive strength to scatter radioactive material over a large area (Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD) / Dirty Bombs, 2009). Around the world, there are a lot of sources of radioactive material that are not sheltered or not accounted for. Dishonest nations and terrorist groups can get hold of these materials for dirty bombs. These volatile weapons may primarily kill a few people in the direct area of the blast but are utilized primarily to create psychological rather than physical damage by stirring up panic and terror. Their utilization would also consequence in expensive cleanup for decontamination (Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD) / Dirty Bombs, 2009).