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Ammonium Nitrate Still Readily Available
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ShareJune 06, 2006 5:57 PM
Days after alleged Canadian terrorists were arrested for procuring three tons of what they thought was ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the substance continues to be readily available.
Mounties in Canada arrested 17 suspected terrorists, who allegedly plotted to blow-up Canadian national monuments like the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Peace Tower in Ottawa. Police made the arrests after delivering a substance similar to ammonium nitrate to the suspects in a sting operation.
Commonly available from commercial fertilizer dealers, ammonium nitrate can be combined with fuel oil and ignited, setting off a high energy chemical reaction powerful and crude enough to be the weapon of choice for domestic and international terrorists.
After Timothy McVeigh's 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and recent blasts in Bali, Indonesia, state and federal regulators have slowly taken notice.
Kathy Mathers of The Fertilizer Institute, an industry-wide lobbying group, says that federal regulations are the best way to protect the product's integrity and make sure it's acquired for its intended farming use. She says that state and industry policies, many of which are voluntary, are the only regulations stopping potential terrorists. And skirting the regulations that do exist, says Mathers, is no tall task. "All you'd have to do is cross the border to your neighbor state where there probably are no regulations."
Congress has begun to take notice. Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) sponsored a bill requiring sellers to maintain records of purchasers' names, addresses and business. Purchasers would have to register with their state's department of agriculture.
A spokesman for Representative Weldon says passing the bill is "a no-brainer." Weldon's office added, "This is a priority. We were reminded last weekend why we need to keep an eye on ammonium nitrate."
Weldon is pushing House Speaker Dennis Hastert to hold a vote. The bill is also awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Read Weldon's letter to Speaker Hastert.
June 6, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (2)
most of the fertilizer available comercially is of too low of a conentration to make a effective explosive and must be refined further. However the pure stuff is available at farmers coops and other such places and this probably should be regulated especially if large amts are being sold to someone who doesnt have a large farm. Another point about this explosive is that it is technically difficult to use and needs expert knowledge on how to detonate it. Timothy Mcvay had that expertise and his bonb worked, but the first wtc bonbers did not have this expertise and thier bomb luckily just fizzled.
Posted by: sswigart | Jun 9, 2006 12:56:18 PM
I don't think either McVeigh or Nichols were trained in the MOS that would have given them that expertise. They were 11B in a mech unit. McVeigh didn't pass the test to go SF. Would the Anarchist's Cookbook be all that's needed to acquire the expertise? (Not that I'm asking for myself or anything.)
Posted by: Joe | Jun 13, 2006 10:24:37 PM
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