Coming soon to a neighborhood like yours courtesy of these chemistry majors..
Islamic State Hijacks Mosul University Chemistry Lab for Making Bombs
DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC. 5:27 AM ET 4/1/2016
By Margaret Coker in London and Ben Kesling in Baghdad
Islamic State has been using a well-stocked, university chemistry lab in Mosul, Iraq, for the past year to concoct a new generation of explosive devices and train militants to make them, according to U.S. and Iraqi military officials and two people familiar with the university.
Gen. Hatem Magsosi, Iraq's top explosives officer, said the facilities at the University of Mosul have enhanced Islamic State's ability to launch attacks in Iraq and to export bomb-making know-how when its fighters leave the so- called caliphate and return to their home countries.
The weaponry churned out includes peroxide-based chemical bombs and suicide-bomb vests like the ones used in the Brussels attacks and by at least some of the Paris attackers, according to the general and others in the Iraqi military, as well as an official from the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.
Other bombs made include nitrate-based explosives and chemical weapons, Gen. Magsosi said.
"The University of Mosul is the best Daesh research center in the world, " the general said, using another name for Islamic State. "Trainees go to Raqqa, [Syria], then to Mosul university to use the existing facilities."
Its current status isn't clear, however. The U.S.-led coalition has targeted the campus with airstrikes more than once, most recently on March 19.
"We do know that Daesh has used some of those buildings for military purposes and we bombed them," said Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq.
The Pentagon said March 19 it was targeting an Islamic State weapons-storage facility and headquarters, but gave no more detail.
Col. Warren said the Mosul bomb-making labs are among the biggest that the Islamic State has established. He said the university has a sprawling campus and the coalition would continue to target such facilities if they are identified.
Last week, the Pentagon said the U.S. military had killed a man they identified as one of Islamic State's top military officials. It didn't give any further information, but Gen. Magsosi said the man, known as Abu Eman, was the top expert at the Mosul bomb lab.
When Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, in the summer of 2014, the university was one of the spoils. The university had a strong reputation around Iraq for its science departments, alumni say.
By March 2015, dozens of Islamic State engineers and scientists had set up a research hub in the chemistry lab, which was full of equipment and chemicals, according to the people with knowledge of the university.
Many of the regular staff, including professors specialized in organic, industrial and analytical chemistry, remained in the city at the time, but the new laboratories were staffed by Islamic State's own men, according to one of those people.
At least since August, dozens of individuals--presumed to be foreigners because they didn't speak Iraqi Arabic-- were seen moving through the labs, the two people said. They said they were told specialized units had been set up there for chemical explosives and weapons research as well as suicide-bomb construction.
A separate group at the university's technical college was dedicated to building suicide-bomb components, one of the two said.
During the same time frame, there has been a surge in Islamic State's use of bombs that mix chemical precursors into an explosive powdery substance known as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, both in Iraq and Europe.
It isn't clear how many of these weapons, if any, can be traced to research or training conducted in Mosul.
Gen. Magsosi says that his bomb-detection units called peroxide-based explosives the "Satan Recipe" because they are very hard to detect and they are usually so lethal.
It isn't yet known whether the militants who carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks spent time at the Mosul facility during their time in Islamic State territory. Investigators say they suspect that at least one member of the network, Najim Laachraoui, made TATP-based explosives that were stuffed into suicide belts and suitcases and used in those attacks.
An analysis of arrest records involving suspected jihadists indicate that the penchant for peroxide-based chemical explosives is prevalent among people suspected as being returned foreign fighters or Islamic State sympathizers.
Last week, French police arrested a man in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil who had a TATP bomb and who the Interior Ministry said was in the advanced stages of planning another attack.
In April 2015, German police arrested two suspected Islamic radicals after raiding their house near Frankfurt and finding a pipe bomb and other weaponry. They had been monitoring the man after he and his wife bought three liters of hydrogen peroxide--which can be used to make TATP--at a home improvement store, Frankfurt's chief prosecutor said at the time. Authorities said they suspected the pair were planning to attack a bike race.
That same month, Indonesian police recovered and neutralized a TATP bomb planted at a Jakarta shopping mall, allegedly by a local man who had fought for Islamic State.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer who commanded the U.K.'s chemical-warfare regiment, worked with Indonesian police to analyze what he called a sophisticated homemade explosive. The device, housed inside a cardboard box, comprised four bottles of chemicals wrapped with wires, batteries and timer, he said.
"It had quite a sophisticated set of detonators," said Mr. de Bretton-Gordon, indicating some training.
Also in April 2015, Iraqi federal police units fighting to retake the city of Tikrit recovered a hydrogen peroxide drum filled with a homemade chemical explosive similar to a TATP bomb. It was one of the first instances of such chemicals being found on the battlefield in Iraq, but in the ensuing months, bomb-disposal teams have recovered several other peroxide-based bombs in battles in Tikrit and Anbar.
A chemistry lab like the one at the University of Mosul is an ideal setting to get practice mixing volatile explosives in a controlled setting, explosives experts said.
Beyond the right recipe for a stable bomb, a person also needs to know how to house the explosives and transport the assembled bomb to avoid an accidental explosion. TATP is known among experts in law enforcement and military as highly unstable.
"TATP is so sensitive that any level of heat, friction and shock can lead to initiation," meaning an explosion, said Phil Jowett, a retired British Royal Engineer who now works for the consultancy, Worldwide Counter Threat Solutions.
Iraqi soldiers responsible for bomb clearance said that they have been seeing more deadly and sophisticated devices over the past year, and can now recognize what they refer to as signature techniques of different Islamic State bomb makers. These include a wiring technique known as the "Destructive Circle," a booby trap running around the device designed to set the bomb off when technicians are at work trying to defuse it.
Another evolutionary design style in Islamic State suicide belts is the "double bluff," or two sets of detonating triggers that serve as a backstop against possible malfunction.
Alexis Flynn in London and Ghassan Adnan in Baghdad contributed to this article.
Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com and Ben Kesling at benjamin.kesling@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
This was corrected at 10:21 a.m. ET because the original incorrectly stated Mr. Jowett's first name was Paul and the company name was World Wide Counter Threat Solutions, in the 29th paragraph.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-01-160527ET
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
wsj.com |
