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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 4, 1986 '
airline is holding its own, a tribute to the carrier's tough security
precautions.
n
What is most frightening about the explosion aboard TWA Flight 840 is the
apparent ease with which the terrorist eluded airport s�curity measures
at Cairo airport. This may have been due to the bomber's use of a hard
to-detect plastic explosive. Last Friday, an explosives expert showed a
nationwide TV audience on CBS news how innocent-looking some plastic
explosive devices are. Be displayed several bombs which looked to be
nothing more than thin pieces of cardboard, easily carried in either a
suitcase or a briefcase. Most amazingly, he next displayed several yards
of what looked to be twine--again, a plastic bomb. Such "twine" could be
used to wrap a "gift• and be carried right aboard a plane. Of course the
explosive would still need to be detonated. But the expert showed that
the appropriate timer-detonator was so small it could actually be
concealed inside an ink pen.
Another CBS report claimed that Libya had recently employed at least a
dozen o.s. and Canadian explosives experts in training would-be
terrorists in bomb-making techniques. An American, who was ·one of these
instructors, was asked what the Libyans wanted him to teach. Be replied:
"Bow to make home-made bombs, how to defeat security, assassination
techniques and things of that nature." Asked what type of people were
his students, he replied curtly: "Assassins.• He further said that the
Libyans used some East Bloc personnel as teachers, but preferred to use
Americans because of "the advanced technology we have in explosives and
electronics.•
The motives of the American and Canadian teachers for
doing such instruction, he added, •was money."
Because of the increased use of plastic explosives, the U.S. Federal
Aviation Agency is spending $12 million this year on explosives detection
research.
One possible countermeasure is called "thermal neutron
activation."
Using this technology, luggage is bombarded with low
intensity neutron particles that interact with nitrogen found in all
explosives. But the use of hard-to-detect plastic explosives is not the
end of the story. We have lately received several news accounts about
the development of--hold your breath!--a plastic gun!
Such a weapon
(actually part metal, part plastic) is already produced in Austria, and
licensed for import to the United States. A reporter in the March 10
issue of MACLEAN'S called it •the hijacker's special." The plastic gun
is indeed for real, as syndicated columnists Jack Anderson and Dale Van
Atta wrote in their March 14 column:
We stirred up a tempest of alarm, denial and malicious innuendo
when we reported recently that Libyan dictator Muammar Khadafy,
the terrorists' friend, was dickering to buy a quantity of
Austrian-made, semi-plastic pistols that are difficult or
impossible for airport security measures to detect. The pistol
is the Glock 17, invented by an Austrian, Gaston Glock, and
manufactured at a plant outside Vienna.
Our intelligence
sources told us Khadafy was trying to buy 100 to 300 of the
handguns.