Fertilizer security once again moved into the spotlight last week when New York law enforcement officials on May 1 discovered 100 pounds of bagged fertilizer ?Çô along with gasoline, propane, firecrackers, and alarm clocks ?Çô in a bomb-rigged SUV parked in Times Square.
The crudely made bomb was safely defused, and a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, Faisal Shahzad, was arrested on May 3 at Kennedy Airport after boarding a plane that was scheduled to fly to Dubai. Authorities tracked down Shahzad using the vehicle identification number on the Nissan Pathfinder that was left unattended ?Çô with the engine running and hazard lights flashing ?Çô in the crowded Times Square entertainment and shopping district on Saturday evening. The IP address of the computer Shahzad used to contact the seller of the Nissan Pathfinder was also critical information in tracking him down, authorities said.
Eight bags of fertilizer were found in a metal gun locker located in the Pathfinder’s rear cargo area. New York Police Detective Cheryl Crispin told Green Markets that an analysis of the fertilizer was incomplete and the investigation ongoing, but an NYPD spokesman at a news conference early in the week said the material was not “explosive grade” and would not have produced “the kind of devastation associated with ammonium nitrate bombs.” The spokesman said the fertilizer was purchased at a grocery store. Newsweek magazine referred to it as “several bags of garden-variety fertilizer,” and Fox News referred to it as “sugar nitrate fertilizer.” The Fertilizer Institute said sugar nitrate is actually potassium nitrate.
Along with the fertilizer, investigators found two full five-gallon gasoline containers, three 20-pound propane tanks, a 16-ounce can packed with 20-30 M-88 firecrackers, and two alarm clocks that were wired to one or more of the other items. CNN reported that authorities also found 15 bags of fertilizer and flash powder at a Connecticut home where Shahzad had once lived.
Shahzad, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen just one year ago, was formally charged on five counts in a federal court in Manhattan on May 4, including trying to explode a weapon of mass destruction. He reportedly confessed to rigging the car bomb and admitted to receiving bomb-making training in Pakistan’s Waziristan region. Shahzad was reportedly cooperating with authorities, and initial reports said he had told investigators that he acted alone.
On May 6, however, the New York Times reported that intense questioning of Shahzad had led officials to believe the Pakistan Taliban had helped inspire and train him, and that investigators were questioning members of the banned militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad in Islamabad. News reports early in the week said intelligence officials in Pakistan had detained five suspects in the southern city of Karachi in connection with the case.
According to Fox News, the Times Square car bomb was planted two days after the U.S. military’s Central Command had issued a 13-page classified intelligence report, Fertilizer Production in Pakistan and IED Implications, warning that fertilizer bombs are being manufactured by the Taliban and insurgents in Pakistan and are increasingly used to fight NATO forces.
“Beyond domestic instances of fertilizer-based HME (homemade explosives), militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan are increasingly using fertilizer as the main charge in their IEDs,” the report was quoted as saying. “Ammonium nitrate-based fertilizers, including calcium ammonium nitrate, produce effects similar to dynamite, and the mixture of urea and nitric acid produces explosives similar to nitroglycerine.”
Mathers noted that investigators determined quickly that the fertilizer was not ammonium nitrate. She cautioned as well that “fertilizer by itself is not explosive anyway.” In reference to the classified report cit