U.S. Agency Sees Global Network for Bomb Making

Government forensic investigators examining how terrorists manufacture improvised explosives have found indications of a global bomb-making network, and have concluded that Islamic militant bomb builders have used the same designs for car bombs in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, government officials said this week. “Linkages have been made in devices that have been used in different continents,” said one forensic expert involved in the intelligence effort. “We know that we have the same bomb maker, or different bomb makers are using the same instructions.” The previously undisclosed intelligence operation has expanded on studies of past cases like investigations of the thwarted shoe-bomb attack aboard a Paris to Miami flight in December 2001. In a test, detonation of a similar bomb on a grounded aircraft blew a 2 feet by 2 feet in the fuselage — a potentially catastrophic event aboard a pressurized plane in flight. Full Story