New al-Qaeda Plan: Implant Explosives Inside Attackers

Agents say current screening methods can foil such plots
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 6, 2010 11:50 AM CST
New al-Qaeda Plan: Implant Explosives Inside Attackers
This file image made from videotape posted on the Internet on Dec. 7, 2005 shows Al-Qaida's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.   (AP Photo/AP Television News)

Some terrorists are hoping to create a new type of suicide bomber: One who has explosives implanted in his bodies, or, as the New York Daily News dramatically calls them, "Frankenbombers." “I am waiting for the interaction of the experienced brothers to connect the two sciences”—bombmaking and surgery—“together,” wrote one jihadist on an al-Qaeda-linked message board. Counterterrorism authorities are concerned about the possibility.

“No technique is off-limits to Al Qaeda to achieve its destructive goals,” said a former agent. Thus far, however, “no one has figured out how to actually do it,” said an official. Further, “you have to have some external device to cause that initiation," noted an expert, so an implanted device would theoretically be detected. "That's what the advanced imaging technology machine will pick up: any anomaly outside of the body."

(More al-Qaeda stories.)

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