Bomb maker races terrorists

Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.

Ten years ago, peroxide-based bombs were mostly the work of young pranksters. But the easy-to-make-yet-deadly chemical cocktails were embraced in the late 1990s by Palestinian militants and suicide bombers bent on killing large groups of people.

Now, Mr. Yeager says, the “Mother of Satan” explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S., more so than a nuclear or radiological “dirty” bomb.

“Every serious terrorist group knows about them and knows how to make them,” he said.

The forensic scientist leads the explosives unit at the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., about 35 miles south of the District.

“Bad guys are bombers,” Mr. Yeager said. “You don’t have to have the level of sophistication to make a bomb that you need to get nuclear materials.”

The bombs are made by mixing chemicals that are used in common household items, including hydrogen peroxide and paint thinner, and easily found at drugstores or hardware stores. Scientists know them as TATP, short for triacetone triperoxide, and HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.

Recent cases of explosions or thwarted attacks with TATP or HMTD in the country include:

• Would-be millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam. He was carrying HMTD among the 124 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car when he was arrested near the U.S.-Canada border in December 1999.

• Richard C. Reid, the would-be British shoe bomber, tried unsuccessfully to detonate 8 ounces of TATP hidden in his high-top sneaker during a Paris-to-Miami flight in 2001.

• University of Oklahoma suicide bomber Joel Henry Hinrichs III used TATP to blow himself up near a packed football stadium in October 2005.

• College student Matthew Rugo in Texas City, Texas. He was killed in July when a plastic storage container of TATP that was mixed in his apartment exploded. The FBI has not found a connection in the case to international terrorist groups, but the investigation continues.

In addition, counterterrorist authorities say terrorists planned to mix a solution similar to TATP in last summer’s thwarted attacks on as many as 10 London-to-U.S. flights, leading to the crackdown on bringing liquids aboard airlines.

Also, ecoterrorists and animal rights extremist groups such as Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front are thought by authorities to use peroxide-based explosives.

Mr. Yeager, 41, who helps the FBI solve bombing cases by investigating the crime-scene debris, is the only U.S. official who makes TATP and similar explosives in mass quantities.

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