Australian Embassy bombing

[Davo]

On the news tonight they had a story that a car bomb had been detonated outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta. No Australians were killed, however some Indonesians on the streets were killed and injured.

Although its not nice that such a thing happened, something worse will happen in Australia in the coming months. Because an election will come up, both major parties will campaign heavily on "security" a.k.a replacing democracy with fascism and turning the police into a gestapo. The sheeple will of course fall for it in the misguided belief the country is being made more "secure" and the media will rant on again about "bomb making".

For any other Australians out there, I really think something needs to be done about the laws that anally rape us of our civil liberties and apply political pressure to develop a constitution to guaruntee basic rights to privacy and freedom of information, and hopefully, freedom of experimentation.

[Bugger]

I saw it on the overnight BBC TV news. Most of the windows of the large embassy building appeared to have been blown out. But since the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta 3 years ago, hotels and embassies in Jakarta had been greatly strengthened and made more secure. It there any information as to what sort of explosive and detonator was used?

As happened in the case of 9/11, I wonder if Howard knew about the Jakarta Embassy bombing in advance, and did nothing to avert it, on the theory that it would help his failing chances in the Australian general elections on 9th October? In view of the way he tried to make political capital out of 9/11 and the Tampa boat rescue incident, just two months before the 2001 elections, by falsifying Navy news releases and suppressing information unfavorable to himself, and showing himself in the best light possible, I would not be surprised.

And, is it not funny that virtually all terrorist outrages, ever since the WTC basement bombing in 1993, are committed by terrorists who claim to be Muslim, who are are almost exclusively from largely Muslim countries (like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Palestine, Indonesia, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Sudan) or emigrants from them, and who claim to receive orders direct from Dog-Spelled-Backwards to commit such heinous crimes with promises that they will be rewarded in Paradise with 72 virgins? And who supplies them with the money with which to do their travel and planning, and buy guns, grenades, missiles, launchers, and bomb-making ingredients? - it is the scores of phoney Muslim "charities", which claim to collect for education/health/welfare of Muslims, but, lacking any sort of outside audit, funnel their takings to terrorist groups.

Bugger.

[Pb1]

I, in my prepetual pessimistic mood, would have to agree that this will probably spell an end to democracy. I thought the 'security' rot had only spread to GB (on accout of the Bush-Blair axis of evil), but this will, IMHO, be a turning point. Either a) Australia's rights don't rot away and people start to see the truth, or b) Australia goes the way of the US and starts a domino-effect, leading to the quick degredation of the Aussies' rights, followed by everyone else's. I'd definitely put my money on 'b'. How long other dominoes take to start falling is anyone's guess. Just my $.02.

[akinrog]

it is the scores of phoney Muslim "charities", which claim to collect for education/health/welfare of Muslims, but, lacking any sort of outside audit, funnel their takings to terrorist groups.

Bugger.

You are right about the phoney Muslim "charities". In my country there are many foundations which seem to be in charitable activities but secretly training little children at least a supporter of their fundamental stance.

Once upon a time, one of the journalist secretly got a hidden camera into the dormitories of these shitheads. (This type of foundations not only supply scholarships, but also establish houses to lodge children and youngsters, to brainwash them.) They not only force the little children to worship (do prayers) five times a day but also telling them you shall be Taliban of our country (this was at least five+ years ago).

This created an earthquake in my country. However since majority of the people is Moslem, although a legal proceeding has been started against the managers/executives of the foundation, nothing concrete has been done to them.

[Stone]

It there any information as to what sort of explosive and detonator was used?

The news said around 200kg of potassium chlorate detonated with a "military type high explosive".


Did anyone see the Queensland "letter box bomb" on the news tonight(12th Sept)? Someone demolished someone elses brick letter box with some sort of explosive. I can't find any details on the AU news sites though.

[Hobbit Porn]

I didn't see the news story, just the short of it in he update. Looked like it would have to have been fairly powerful (ie..not just chlorine and brakefliud), and it destroyed the brick mail box... not sure if I heard correctly but did a piece of brick end up through one of the windows of the house across the street?

H.Porn

[Stone]

Bits of brick went through the house that was attacked's window and there was pieces embedded into their front door, etc. The news said some piece flew several houses down the street.

From the before and after pictures of the mailbox, it was definitely not a "chlorine bomb"... Alot of low explosive or something a bit more powerful.

[Barcy]

No matter what way you look at it, letter box bombing is not exactly terrorism despite media attention (or is it another Howard re-election ploy....hhmmm comspiracy and paranoia). But guys, I do agree with the fact that the sheeple, media and want to be dictators will play these latest events to the fullest.

Shit!, as for the media, just about everything has an terrorist connection these days, I was only joking the other night, it is strange the Australian media have not announced a terrorist link to the huge hurricanes hitting the US.

As for the power of the letter box bomb, I recall a old but nasty story on how a person I knew (no not me) and his young mates dropped as homemade device into a letter box that was a bit bigger than normally used for letter box bombing (yes a fine old aussy practice from as far back as my grandfathers days) and the device somehow went into the steel pipe that supported the old rusty letter box, the result was shrapnel city. The box launched, the pipe shattered and the culprits luckyly received no injuries, but did get ear tagged by the local police. But in those days, they got told off and a good kick up the ass for being idiots; end of story.

[croc]

About half a year ago some letter box bombs exploded around my area and I talked to the victim they said they could smell the gunpowder in the air (must have been sulfur dioxide.)
Australian embassy in Jakarta was bombed with potassium chlorate and Trinitrotoluene (TNT) but why potassium chlorate it doesn’t have a booster type effect, self detonate and is not a high explosive, TNT on its own would be better explosive than mixed with potassium chlorate?
Or I could be wrong maybe when the TNT detonates the heat would cause more hot gas release which would be O2 causing combustion to organic material around it. Could someone help me understand why potassium chlorate was used?

[Bugger]

Probably because the suicide bombers in Jakarta did not have enough TNT to do the damage they wanted to do, or to fill their van. So they made the bomb up with some KClO3 because it just happened to be available from a chemicals supplier; or they managed to import it without arousing suspicion because it does not have nitrate or nitro-groups in it which would have been detected by automatic gas analysers at customs. But a better (or worse, depending on your point of view) choice of non-nitrate or -nitro explosive would have been ammonium perchlorate. Besides, chlorate is less stable than perchlorate, and not as good an explosive due to its lesser oxygen content.

[FUTI]

I remember an old story...it's maybe just a hoax but I hope that you forgive me if I said something stupid. It looks like that there was conducted a real experiment about explosive with or without organic material added to it. I think ordinary stick of dinamite is used and saw dust. It seems from the effect it produce that it create stronger explosion than equivalent amount of explosive without a sawdust. The best theory I have that was some of the first aerosol explosive experimentation, so KClO3 in the embassy bombing is maybe added to happily combine with all that cellulose shrads created from the real letters in the mailbox upon the TNT explosion.

[Boomer]

It IS a hoax, wood dust decreases power (unless HE has highly positive OB)!

The chlorate was added to bulk up the TNT, plus to make use of the unburnt carbon + H. See chloratite etc!

And IIRC the embassy was bombed with a vehicle full of HE, not a letter bomb. Seems you mixed it up.

[FUTI]

to Boomer: You are right...I didn't watch carefully what type of explosive device is used on embassy bombing (media here didn't cover that much...election freak party in progress here) and mixed up with someone mention on letter-box bombing somewhere else. Thanks for clearing things up for me... good to know what is the hoax not to look upon it. I'm also happy that I was aiming in right direction with chlorate hypothesis:). Can you tell me why did TNT need bulking up? Wouldn't that reduce it's penetration ability ( I would assume that was general idea)? I will look upon the search term you mentioned.

[Anthony]

Chlorates, including KClO3 are pukka high explosives - they require sensitising, afterwhich they work like ANFOs. I believe in the case of chlorates, the mixtures are called "cheddites".

Never mixed NaClO3 with wax and hit the mixture on an anvil with a hammer? You get a definite explosion.

Obviously, no sensitiser is required when the chlorate is mixed with several hundred kilos of TNT!

[hereno]

Most of the windows of the large embassy building appeared to have been blown out.

Ive noticed that the images always shown on TV etc. are not even the embassy, but a building across the street, thats what your looking at Bugger. The embassy itself only lost a few windows and a few holes. There was a bomb proof fence that stopped most of the force, no one inside it was even hurt.

I guess the embassy itself didnt have the drama that the other building had :rolleyes: Cant even find a photo of it!

[croc]

Never mixed NaClO3 with wax and hit the mixture on an anvil with a hammer? You get a definite explosion.

Wouldn’t that mean NaClO3/Wax could be detonated with a pyrotechnic type firecracker in a metal casing? That doesn’t seem right.

I have been thinking that if the lead on the end of a bullet was removed and TNT or a less sensitive explosive was put on the top of the smokeless powder it could make a great impact sensitive explosive detonator to place on the front of a rocket, am I right?

[thrall]

I always had a feeling that adding chlorates or even perchlorates to other HE's should increase their power. Almost all notroester explosives have negative OB, so adding chlorates will be cool(will only increase their power) but what I thought is that mixing AN would be a better option since it's cheap and widely available.
I still don't get it why the terrorists mixed chlorated instead of AN.
are chlorates more sesitive or more powerful than AN?

[croc]

I think that AN would cause too much suspicion. It is banned in Australia and probably in Indonesia because of its use in many other bombings (the Bali bombing.) If one were to purchase AN it would attract as much attention as walking down the street burning the Australian flag shouting “down to the westerns”

[Anthony]

Wouldn’t that mean NaClO4/Wax could be detonated with a pyrotechnic type firecracker in a metal casing?

It might. There's supposed to be a company which sell huge flash powder filled "detonators" for ANFO.

AN and chlorates are broadly similar, as I remember, chlorate tend to run at 3000-4000 m/sec. If you use potent sensitisers, then this goes up, just like with AN. E.g. nitromethane, which does work with chlorates.

[NightStalker]

Why don't they use large amounts of course ground metals like aluminium, and put that as a jacket around a much lower charge of the TNT or such, to achieve an ersatz thermobaric effect?

Getting a thousand pounds of 20-40 mesh aluminum granules should be piss easy compared to hundreds of pounds of explosives, and the thermobaric effect would be easily equal to 2x that of an equal weight of explosive, with the additional effect of the intense heat turning everything and everyone to char, compared to simple blast/frag injuries.

[croc]

Why don't they use large amounts of course ground metals like aluminium, and put that as a jacket around a much lower charge of the TNT or such, to achieve an ersatz thermobaric effect?
aluminium would need oxygen to burn such as when it is mixed with another explosive. The explosive around it would probably cause the aluminium to implode, am I right?
Don’t mix aluminium with AN though, they don’t play friendly.
Does anybody know why they shouldn’t be mixed?

[NightStalker]

Bzzzz!

Read up on how thermobarics work, then read what you just posted, and finally smack yourself on the forehead...HARD...for gettting it bass-ackwards wrong. :)

[croc]

Sorry I miss read your post what I thought you said was aluminium in the middle and TNT on the outside.
BTW: i have tryed to look up thermobarics but nowhere can tell me what it is.

[NightStalker]

Because you're using the plural term "thermobarics", and not the singular "thermobaric". Try using the singular on google and you'll be amazed at what you can find. ;)


Typo in your suggested search string :) - Anthony

[s9ar7acu3]

Democracy is a foolish joke and never really existed. All that is happening is further consolidation of power to suppress any true dissent.

[croc]

What would be better than Thermobarric is using dangerous heavy metal compound. Lead dioxide would be my choice because t is toxic, cancer causing and vaporizes in a smoke mix. All that would need to be done is put the lead nitrate brown smoke bomb in a mortar and let it be shot up; just before it lands near the bomb site the explosives detonate. This will knock people down stopping them from escaping the toxic brown smoke, there adrenaline will be pumping which would make them breathe faster and when they take there first breath of toxic smoke they will be gasping for air and breath more. If this was done in the Australian embassy bombings more people would have been killed with an OTC chemical than with the explosive. But this has not happened yet because terrorists lack what we do not, common scene.

[Bugger]

Lead dioxide would be my choice because t is toxic, cancer causing and vaporizes in a smoke mix. All that would need to be done is put the lead nitrate brown smoke bomb in a mortar and let it be shot up; just before it lands near the bomb site the explosives detonate. This will knock people down stopping them from escaping the toxic brown smoke, there adrenaline will be pumping which would make them breathe faster and when they take there first breath of toxic smoke they will be gasping for air and breath more.
Nah, PbO2 (or red lead, Pb3O4, used as a paint pigment especially in primers) in a smoke bomb, along with regular explosives, is much too slow-acting as a poison to increase the kill of people in an Al Qaeda-type suicide bombing, or with a mortar bomb. Besides, in the form of a smoke, people simply would not inhale enough for it to have appreciable and immediate effects; and Pb poisoning can be treated e.g. by chelation therapy. And people do not deliberately breathe more of what they perceive to be brown smoke - they would either run away, or use whatever items of clothing they have as makeshift air filters.

Then there is the problem of the heavy density of PbO2 powder, which would quickly fall to the ground. Used as a smoke ingredient, it would literally go down like a lead balloon.

[FUTI]

Bugger said the truth. One of the main reasons why they start switching to petrol without PbEt4 is the measurements that shown the particles and fumes (PbX2) containing the lead are accumulating close to earth in area well bellow 1,5m which is in the region of small kids noses...and brain accumulated lead cause hell to kids by what the doctors say.

So allthough near ground toxin accumulation is advisable in certain cases (biological warefare for example) to prevent fast dilution and focus action, as you see cannot harm efficiently grown up people in the case of Pb-oxides.