Anyone else hear this?

[rikaaim]

I heard on a breaking radio news story that a "dirty" bomb is thought to have been planted in Boston, MA, by a group of terrorists. Anyone else hear that or have more info? Or, can you tell me where to get more info?

 

[rikaaim]

(CNN) Federal agents Wednesday notified authorities in Massachusetts to look out for four people wanted for questioning in connection with a possible terrorist threat to the Boston area, law enforcement sources said.

The search is based on an uncorroborated warning from a source of unknown credibility, the sources said.

Nevertheless, law enforcement agencies throughout Massachusetts were put on alert in response.

The alert stems from an uncorroborated report that four Chinese chemists and two Iraqis were smuggled over the U.S. border from Mexico and were headed to Boston, either carrying or planning to receive some unspecified dangerous materials, the sources said.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino were scheduled to hold news conferences on the search Wednesday evening.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I heard on a breaking radio news story that a "dirty" bomb is thought to have been planted in Boston, MA, by a group of terrorists. Anyone else hear that or have more info? Or, can you tell me where to get more info?

There's this on CNN...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

OK, you got there first.

 

[rikaaim]

BOSTON (Reuters) - The FBI said on Wednesday it was investigating a report of a "dirty bomb" threat in Boston, but called the information "uncorroborated."
ABC News reported on Wednesday that teams equipped with radiological sensors were patrolling Boston amid a possible "dirty bomb" threat, but local police said they had no information.

"I haven't heard that we're out there with radiological sensors," said Boston FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz. "Right now all I can tell you is the information that we have has not been corroborated. We have shared the information with our law enforcement partners and we're working aggressively to resolve it."

The ABC News report, broadcast over local Boston radio station WBZ, said an FBI field office in San Diego notified colleagues in Boston that someone may be trying to detonate a dirty bomb in the city.

Marcinkiewicz declined to comment on the source of the information but she noted that the FBI "gets information like this all the time." She would not speculate as to why this particular report had generated so much media interest.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in Washington for President Bush's second inauguration ceremony, was scheduled to discuss the matter during a news conference at 5:30 p.m. EST.

WBZ reported Romney would cut short his trip to Washington and would return to Massachusetts later on Wednesday evening as a result of the report. A spokeswoman for the governor did not rule out that Romney would return to Boston on Wednesday.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

 

[rikaaim]

Thankfully it all seems unconfirmed and speculation with no solid evidence.

 

[Op_Cit]

There's a reason why you've never heard of a dirty bomb going off in Israel (That is, why long time experienced terrorist organizations don't do them):

They're nothing to be affraid of. The real terrorists have realized that putting nails in bombs and using diseased/infected people causes more harm/damage.

When you hear the government talking about this it's probably cover story/charge for some other reason they're trying to get a hold of these guys.

 

[rikaaim]

There's a reason why you've never heard of a dirty bomb going off in Israel (That is, why long time experienced terrorist organizations don't do them):

They're nothing to be affraid of. The real terrorists have realized that putting nails in bombs and using diseased/infected people causes more harm/damage.

When you hear the government talking about this it's probably cover story/charge for some other reason they're trying to get a hold of these guys.

That makes sense really. A diversion from tomarrow.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

There's a reason why you've never heard of a dirty bomb going off in Israel (That is, why long time experienced terrorist organizations don't do them):

They're nothing to be affraid of. The real terrorists have realized that putting nails in bombs and using diseased/infected people causes more harm/damage.

When you hear the government talking about this it's probably cover story/charge for some other reason they're trying to get a hold of these guys.

Wait a minute! A dirty bomb usually refers to a bunch of radioactive material wrapped around conventional chemical explosive. The idea isn't that the bomb hurts people when it goes off. It's that the radioactive material it blows all over the place can contaminate a huge area of land for thousands of years, depending on what radionuclide they use.

---dr.M.

 

[Op_Cit]

Wait a minute! A dirty bomb usually refers to a bunch of radioactive material wrapped around conventional chemical explosive. The idea isn't that the bomb hurts people when it goes off. It's that the radioactive material it blows all over the place can contaminate a huge area of land for thousands of years, depending on what radionuclide they use.

---dr.M.

Ask any nuclear health specialist and they'll laugh. While plutonium is like the deadliest poison, that's not common enough to be found/used in those (they'd much rather use it for thermonukes).

All the other stuff is simply cleaned up (vacuum cleaner and geiger counter, showers). Health effects are miniscule. (not dense enough to "burn" --high rate of exposure--and it passes through the body relatively quick.)

Now all the vaporized depleted uranium we're spreading all over Iraq and Afganistan is another matter. We're not cleaning it up as we go. Those people are screwed.

 

[TheEarl]

Ask any nuclear health specialist and they'll laugh. While plutonium is like the deadliest poison, that's not common enough to be found/used in those (they'd much rather use it for thermonukes).

All the other stuff is simply cleaned up (vacuum cleaner and geiger counter, showers). Health effects are miniscule. (not dense enough to "burn" --high rate of exposure--and it passes through the body relatively quick.)

Now all the vaporized depleted uranium we're spreading all over Iraq and Afganistan is another matter. We're not cleaning it up as we go. Those people are screwed.

Op_Cit: If someone gets weapons grade plutonium or enriched uranium and doesn't know how to make a thermonuke, then it'd be a fair bet that a dirty bomb would be the way to go. Even if they have lesser materials, the danger is to the people who have been caught in the blast, rather than long-term contamination of the area.

I wouldn't have said it was a purple alert (or whatever colour your alerts are), but it's still something to be minorly worried about.

The Earl

 

[Op_Cit]

Op_Cit: If someone gets weapons grade plutonium or enriched uranium and doesn't know how to make a thermonuke, then it'd be a fair bet that a dirty bomb would be the way to go. Even if they have lesser materials, the danger is to the people who have been caught in the blast, rather than long-term contamination of the area.

I wouldn't have said it was a purple alert (or whatever colour your alerts are), but it's still something to be minorly worried about.

The Earl

They'd be hard pressed to build something that would properly disperse those elements.

Like I said before: If they were such a good idea, they'd be happening all over in the hotbeds of terrorism.

Even with bad stuff like gas attacks, it's too hard to make it affect a lot of people (like in Japan: more would have been harmed putting a bomb on one train).

Terroists are not that stupid: they can do the math on effort/payoff and the straight bomb thing is so much more effective (like Spain).

I'm not trying to be geek of the year, I'm trying to point out the other side of terrorism: government terrorism / demagoguery.

Fear is just too good a tool for government not to leverage it to the max.

Stop being affraid of the wrong things, or better yet, stop being affraid.

 

[TheEarl]

They'd be hard pressed to build something that would properly disperse those elements.

Like I said before: If they were such a good idea, they'd be happening all over in the hotbeds of terrorism.

Even with bad stuff like gas attacks, it's too hard to make it affect a lot of people (like in Japan: more would have been harmed putting a bomb on one train).

Terroists are not that stupid: they can do the math on effort/payoff and the straight bomb thing is so much more effective (like Spain).

I'm not trying to be geek of the year, I'm trying to point out the other side of terrorism: government terrorism / demagoguery.

Fear is just too good a tool for government not to leverage it to the max.

Stop being affraid of the wrong things, or better yet, stop being affraid.

I would have said that a sufficient quanitity of explosives would distribute any material over a wide area. I'm not an expert though, so I bow to your superior knowledge.

However the one thing that I do disagree with is the effort/payoff thing. Terrorism isn't just about the body-count - it's about fear. The reason why the Tokyo subway attacks were so successful for that group was not that they killed lots of people, but for the fear factor of the use of nerve gas. People imagined it to be far worse than it actually was and thus the terrorist's power grew. A bomb is 'just another bomb.' Nerve gas is an atrocity.

A mail bomb could kill lots more people than anthrax in the mail, but anthrax is scarier. A supermarket bomb would scare people, but drop in the words 'dirty bomb' and people start panicking.

Terrorism feeds on fear and in that sense a dirty bomb is far more effective than its potential body count would suggest.

The Earl