Thursday, October 01, 2009

Shadowland on the "Butt Bomber"

The New TNT
New studies of suicide bombers say that most have three important qualities in common: testosterone, a narrative fantasy, and a desire to make theater.
September 29, 2009

Al Qaeda has made a horrifying—if bizarre—advance in terrorist tradecraft. As recently reported by my friend Frank Gardner, security correspondent for the BBC, the suicide bomber who tried unsuccessfully to blow up Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism chief in August actually had the explosives inside his body. It's possible the bomb—which was made from materials that wouldn't set off metal detectors—was swallowed or stitched into him in some fashion, but according to one usually authoritative Saudi official, the explosives had been inserted in the terrorist's rectum.

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