security think tank detects arse threat

I fart in your general direction.

One of the most recent suicide attacks was the Aug. 28 attempt by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to assassinate Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. In that attack, a suicide operative smuggled an assembled IED containing approximately one pound of high explosives from Yemen to Saudi Arabia concealed in his rectum. While in a meeting with Mohammed, the bomber placed a telephone call and the device hidden inside him detonated.

Stratfor adds:

In an environment where militant operational planning has shifted toward concealed IED components, this concept of smuggling components such as explosive mixtures inside of an operative poses a daunting challenge to security personnel — especially if the components are non-metallic

But if we’re being serious about the extent of this threat we need some kind of assessment of jihadist arse capacity. A pound of explosives wouldn’t be much good for structural damage. It’s more your personal assassination thing, and apparently not even so effective for that. Loading it with shrapnel would present certain difficulties too.

…unless, that is, you radically increased the power of the explosives. Gazing into my crystal ball, I see a muslim nuclear arse threat looming, very possibly of Iranian origin, which all serious people will have to take seriously. You heard it here first.

Comments

[Alex]

"There's something ticking in his stomach! It's a stomach bomb!" - Major Bloodnok, I think.

[Richard J]

I suppose the big problem with rectal explosive is that you must get something of a shaped-charge effect. Very good for punching through armour plated chairs, not so good for massive terrorist impact.

[ajay]

Major Bloodnok well ahead of the Joker, in that case...

[jamie]

"...you must get something of a shaped-charge effect."

Yeah, but to make the most of that you'd have to turn round, spread your cheeks and point your arse at the target. Otherwise the wetware would take a lot of the force of the blast. It's like if you put a firework up a cat's arse and held the cat while it went off, your hands wouldn't be damaged because you couldn't get a firework with a big enough charge up the cats arse in the first place.

If it wasn't for the politically correct brigade I have no doubt that this would be taught at chemistry O level.

[Richard J]

"Yeah, but to make the most of that you'd have to turn round, spread your cheeks and point your arse at the target."

Best pull my finger gag ever.

"If it wasn't for the politically correct brigade I have no doubt that this would be taught at chemistry O level."

After we'd finished off chemistry A level, a kid in my class managed to convince the teacher to let him make Nitrogen Triodide, which goes bang at (literally) the touch of a feather.

[Fellow Traveller]

Seek out goatse man for immediate deployment. He should manage to take out everyone in the room.

[Chris Williams]

FT wins this week's "Coffee on the keyboard" award. Collect your prize on the way out.

[ajay]

Not so - a shaped charge is a hollow charge. In fact, you'd get a more or less spherically symmetrical blast, with the most powerful blast in the horizontal plane, I think, as the explosive would be roughly cylindrical and the pressure gradient's highest at right angles to the cylinder's axis.

Also: a pound of explosive? He must have been walking funny.

[alle]

Good God, just as I was getting used to the new customs searches.