"Trains! They don't like trains!"
Posted on 08/04/2006 9:10:07 AM PDT by conservativecorner
The failure of two suitcase bombs to explode on separate German trains this week most likely prevented Germany from joining the ranks of London and Madrid on the list horrific commuter bombings.
The first bomb was discovered on Monday on a 120-passenger regional train that ran between Aachen and Hamm, cities located in the north-western German state of North Rhineland-Westphalia. A conductor discovered a suitcase in an empty passenger section at the Hamm end of the run and sent it to the Dortmund train station because there was no lost and found office in Hamm.
In Dortmund, railway employees opened the suitcase to try and establish the identity of the owner. To their horror, what they discovered instead was a full, 11-kilogramm butane gas tank, an alarm clock, batteries, cables and a 4.5 liter bottle filled with a gas mixture. They immediately summoned the police and fire department who emptied the train station of passengers and sealed it off until explosive experts could defuse the bomb.
The second explosive, packed in a similar-looking suitcase, was also discovered in a regional train, but on Sunday and on one that ran between Moenchengladbach and Koblenz. This lethal package was only opened on Tuesday in the Koblenz train station. Its contents were similar to those found in the Dortmund suitcase.
The German federal office responsible for investigating the suitcase bombs says both deadly devices were professionally built. Investigators believe the bombs are either part of a criminal extortion plot directed at the German railway system or an attempted terrorist attack. Since no ransom demand has been received, the 100 security officials assigned to the case are investigating the two incidents from the terrorism angle.
Expressing the shock of the German investigators, Juergen Kleis, head of the Dortmund police force’s criminal department said the explosive in the suitcase his city received was capable of detonation and that there would have been many dead and wounded upon activation.
Ina Holznagel of Dortmund’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office was even more explicit.
“If the bomb had exploded, the train would have been destroyed,” she said.
According to a report that appeared in “Focus Online”, a German news publication, police suspect the only reason the bombs didn’t detonate was because the gas bottles that were to ignite them were too full.
“With the Dortmund bomb, the gas bottle was filled to the brim and the gas concentration too high,” one police expert told the publication. “An explosion can only result when there is also sufficient air in the bottle. It is only dangerous when there is the right gas-air mixture.”
Focus Online also reported that the perpetrator(s) also wanted to feign a chemical-biological attack with the Dortmund bomb. A bag containing a harmless white powder, it stated, was found with the bomb ready to be dispersed with the explosion.
However, while investigators now possess good knowledge about the bombs, they have little to go on regarding the people who placed them where they could have caused such horrific loss of human life. Police however have distributed 15,000 fliers asking for the public’s help in the investigation, while investigators, armed with photographs of the two deadly pieces of luggage, are traveling on both trains during the hours it is believed the suitcases were left, looking for witnesses who may have seen the culprit(s).
This is not the first time the German railway system has faced a bomb threat. In 2003, a suitcase containing a deadly explosive was left on a platform at the main train station in Dresden. The offender, a sixty-three year old German, later confessed it was part of a plan to extort money from a bank.
In the current investigation, German officials are also referring back to two unsolved bombings in North Rhineland-Westphalia. The first occurred in Cologne in June, 2004, when a nail bomb exploded on a street whose residents were mostly Turks. Twenty-two people were injured.
The second explosion happened six years ago in Dusseldorf near a local train station. Ten Eastern European immigrants, most of them Jewish, were badly injured. A baby also died in its mother’s womb in the attack.
One German terrorism expert has stated that in comparison with the attack on the commuter trains in Madrid in March, 2004, in which 191 people died, the bombs found on the German trains appear to be the work of a single person whose work isn’t as professional.
Nevertheless, Ullrich Schultheis, speaker for German security officials working on the case stated: “We are investigating in all directions and have only begun.”
Maybe the Germans will WAKE UP!
Good to know. Thanks. /sarc
Talk about loose lips. I'm sure the islamists won't make that mistake next time.
Professionally but inexpertly built?
". . . investigating the two incidents from the terrorism angle."
Do ya think this is prudent? /sarc
"Trains! They don't like trains!"
Pink panther strikes again?
You're "somebody" now.
Great movie.
It's still terrorism even if the bombs didn't detonate. Somebody better get that through their skulls.
Isn't this like the story of the Engineer and guillotine? WTF are you doing telling them how to do better next time? (Unless this is complete disinformation.)
LOL - that's pretty hard to do. I think 90% of all riders are middle easterners. If you took them all off the PATH and subways those trains would be pretty empty.
In Israel, any unclaimed package/luggage on a public transport is turned over to the bomb squad IMMEDIATELY.
My son, before he joined the IDF, discovered a backpack on a Jerusalem street corner. He yelled Chefetz chashood! ("suspicious package!") and within one minute the intersection was cleared and the bomb squad was there.
In that case, it turned out to be just a backpack with someone's stuff in it.
The bottle might have had too LITTLE gas in it to start the explosion, and the terrorists would put even less gas in next time.
Several other similar scenarios come to mind...
This bomb doesnt make sense to me. It appears to me that the bombs werent meant to explode. A gas cylinder would have to be penetrated in some way to cause an explosion.
If the gas in the cylinder had been meant to explode it would still have been designed to leak out some way. The gas cylinder couldnt be full and meant to explode unless a charge was placed beside it to penetrate it. If it was penetrated or leaking it wasnt full. Their explanation dosnt make sense to me, But then I am no bomb expert.
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