The Radio New Zealand News gives details about the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.
The heavily guarded hotel was attacked at 8pm local time on Saturday, when a truck blew up at the hotel entrance after it was stopped for a security check.
There is no security footage of the main blast because it destroyed the camera, but officials said the vehicle was packed with 600kg of high-quality explosives, as well as grenades and mortars.
Aluminium powder was also used to accelerate the explosion and added to the ferocity of the blaze, officials said.
The photos I have seen reminded me of the WTC explosion in 1993, and I couldn’t help but notice both mention 600 kg (1310 lb) explosives in trucks, even though the trucks could hold more. Why 600 kg? The 1993 bomb at the WTC also was made from urea nitrate (fertilizer) with aluminum.
A quick search found similar details in a story about a UK man from the BBC:
Defendant Anthony Garcia purchased a 600kg bag of ammonium nitrate fertiliser in November 2003, the jury was told.
This was kept at a self-storage depot in Hanwell, west London, until staff became suspicious and called police.
Mr Garcia is one of seven suspects accused of planning attacks on pubs, nightclubs and stations in the UK.
Some of the suspects are alleged by the prosecution to have received training in explosives and use of the poison ricin in Pakistan.
600 kg of fertilizer (equivalent to 500 kg of TNT high explosive) in these events must be more than a coincidence. The 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the 2002 Bali bombings and the Istanbul HSBC bombing in 2003 have similar notes.
It seems to me that a subtext of ammonium nitrate creation, export and control is missing from the news stories I have read so far. Remember how Timothy McVeigh was accused of using 2,300 kg (5,000 lb) of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane in the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bomb? Even more shocking was the 1947 explosion at the Galvaston ship canal at Texas City on the French Freighter Grand Camp that killed over 576 people, injured 5,000 and caused $67m in damage. Few go over this history of industrialized fertilizer mischief or bring up the question of regulation in these stories about “threats”, but there seems to be a clear pattern.
The US signed a “Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act” in 2007 but it apparently “leaves the U.S. with weaker controls on ammonium nitrate than Britain, Germany, Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and many other nations.” Australia has a list of Principles for the Regulation of Ammonium Nitrate.
I started to look and see if there are any fertilizer early-warning systems under development (e.g. sniffers that could have alerted security that a truck laden with fertilizer was driving through an urban area), and also whether there are ways to neutralize combustibility (detonation resistance) with an additive, but did not get very far. I am sure the latter exists, but what of the former?