The Hindu : Front Page : Concern over civilian explosives stockpile

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 30, 2007
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Concern over civilian explosives stockpile

Praveen Swami

Poor control over production and use of ammonium nitrate facilitating terrorism: experts

Explosives black market flourishing
Production facilities have proliferated

NEW DELHI: India’s failure to develop modern inventory-management and security procedures for its civilian explosives stockpile is undermining efforts to build a credible case that Islamist terror groups are receiving external sponsorship.

While most major terror strikes a decade ago relied on military-grade explosives like RDX, PETN or Semtex – that could be obtained only from a military or covert service – attacks are now most often carried out with ammonium nitrate-based explosives pilfered from legitimate dealers.

For example, NeoGel – a commercial mix of nine parts of ammonium nitrate to one part of an emulsifier — was used in last week’s blasts in Hyderabad. Investigators believe that the explosive was most likely stolen from a quarry in Andhra Pradesh and eventually purchased by terrorists from the flourishing local black market.

Flawed ban

India’s efforts to address the problem, experts say, are deeply flawed. In 2004, the Union Home Ministry imposed a comprehensive ban on the manufacture of nitroglycerine-based explosives for civilian purposes. In their place, users like the mining and construction industry adopted ammonium nitrate-based explosives.

“Our idea,” said one official involved in the decision, “was to try and deny terrorists the option of building up large caches of nitroglycerine-based explosives. Unlike nitroglycerine-based explosives, ammonium nitrate–based explosives are very vulnerable to moisture retention. In field conditions, they have a shelf life under two months.”

But the ban was subverted by the proliferation of production facilities. While just three large factories produced civilian-use explosives till 2004, there are now 73 manufacturers. Many of the factories have come up in anarchic parts of Bihar and Jharkhand, since end-users like the mining industry have a significance presence in these regions.

Although explosives users must possess licence to make purchases and adhere to strict protocols for securing stocks, preventing pilferage has proved impossible. Fishermen, for example, buy explosives for stunning underwater prey, while farmers frequently make crude bombs to scare away predators and pests.

“We urgently need to improve the system for auditing stocks of explosives and fertilizers with dual-use potential,” a Home Ministry official told The Hindu. “But without electronic inventory-management and well-sec ured storage facilities, there is no way to do this. Everyone wants security – but no one wants to pay the bill for it.”

Detonator design

Explosives pilferage is not the only area of concern. Intelligence and police officials have long been calling for design changes in detonators — the thin, thumb-length tubes that initiate an explosion. Experts want detonators fitted with hard-wired fuse which will ensure that an explosion takes six seconds after the completion of the electrical circuit.

Such fuses, the experts say, will make precision attacks on security force convoys or VIPs almost impossible since terrorists will no longer be able to set off explosions at the exact moment their targets pass by. For precision strikes, terrorists will be forced rely on detonators provided by their foreign sponsors.

Across the world, terror groups have come to rely on locally-manufactured explosives and detonators. Ammonium nitrate-based explosives were used to execute the Istanbul bombings of 2003, the Bali nightclub attack in 2002 and the Al-Qaeda strike on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998.

Western governments have tightened controls on both ammonium nitrate-based explosives and fertilizers. Police in the United Kingdom prevented a major terror strike in 2004 as a consequence. In 2006, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police broke up an Al-Qaeda inspired terror group, after the men purchased three tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

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