Pressure cooker bombs

“Contents under pressure may explode” has never been more accurate. Pressure cookers A pressure cooker bomb, like the one used in Boston [and New York City in Sept 2016], takes the rapidly-expanding gasses in a typical gunpowder explosion and holds them under tighter atmospheric pressure. The resulting rupture is

A mundane kitchen appliance has often been used by bombers around the globe to cook up terror. New York police officials said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon that investigators found "some components indicative of an IED," or improvised explosive device, in what appears to a pressure cooker rigged to explode. The discovery of that device followed an explosion just four blocks away, on West 23rd Street, around 8:30 p.m. Saturday — which injured 29 people. Pressure cookers have long been used to build powerful IEDs, law enforcement officials told NBC News. Related: Such devices are rigged by inserting different kinds of explosive materials into the cooker and attaching a blasting cap onto the cover. At Christmastime in 2000, French police thwarted an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in Strasbourg that was set to use a pressure cooker, and the devices soared in popularity after that, being used in numerous deadly attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. A large fragment of a homemade pressure cooker bomb that the FBI says Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev threw at police during a gunfight in Watertown, Mass. HANDOUT / Reuters By 2004, U.S. officials were so concerned with the potential of similar attacks that the Department of Homeland Security issued an "information bulletin" on the "Potential Terrorist Use of Pressure Cookers." It warned that al-Qaeda training camps were teaching a sprawling network of jihadists in how to convert pressure cookers into IEDs. The...

This photo, produced by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of Boston, shows the remains of an explosive device at the Boston Marathon bomb scene. Reuters/Landov hide caption toggle caption Reuters/Landov They are cheap, easy to build and inconspicuous. And as the explosions this week at the Boston Marathon show, pressure cooker bombs can be devastatingly effective weapons. But why would someone place a bomb inside a common kitchen implement? As "It works using basic principles of science: Water normally boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit — and doesn't get hotter. But under pressure, it boils at about 242 F and stays there. Raising the boiling point lets the food cook at the higher temperature, which cuts cooking time by two-thirds or more." The same principle that increases the boiling point inside a pressure cooker also can be used to amplify the force of an explosive. As NPR science reporter Geoffrey Brumfiel notes, "If you seal a pressure cooker, the steam builds up in the vessel. It helps to raise the temperature and cook food, but sometimes when the cooker fails, you get a very energetic release." Confiscated pressure cooker IEDs in Malaysia. Mercantile Communications/Department of Homeland Security In the case of a bomb packed with nails and BBs, that "energetic release" propels deadly shrapnel, including pieces of the pressure cooker itself, in all directions, killing or maiming anyone in the blast path. The pressure cooker's ability to amplify an explosion turns common bl...

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> A suspicious device found in New York City may be an improvised explosive device made from a household pressure cooker, according to Police retrieved the device on Saturday night on West 27th Street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Nearby, on West 23rd Street, an explosion injured 29 people, all of whom have since left the hospital, NYPD (opens in a new tab) Sunday. SEE ALSO: Law enforcement sources told reporters that the device on West 27th Street resembled the pressure cooker bombs used in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. NYPD has not officially confirmed any details about the device, except to say that the Bomb Squad is analyzing the package at a "secure NYPD facility in the Bronx," the department (opens in a new tab) Sunday afternoon. A look at the pressure cooker recovered on 27th St. four blocks from the (opens in a new tab) explosion (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) (opens in a new tab) In the kitchen, pressure cookers use an airtight lid to trap steam, which raises its cooking temperature to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius) -- ideal for quickly cooking vegetables, meats or soup. The devices can vary by brand and model, but all pressure cookers generally have the same three components: a pressure regulator, to control and maintain pressure inside the cooker; a vent pipe, which allows excess pressure to be released; and a sealing ring, which creates a pressure-tight seal between the lid...

New York police have named a suspect in the bombing that injured 29 people in Manhattan on Saturday night, as officials backtrack from initial claims that the attack did not have a “foreign” connection. Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalized US citizen born in Afghanistan, was identified by authorities as a suspect on Monday morning. The investigation “might suggest a foreign connection to the action, which would then obviously raise an issue of the foreign nature of this attack”, New York governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN. The identification comes shortly after five additional suspected explosive devices were found in a backpack near a train station in New Jersey, late on Sunday night. One of those devices exploded when a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it near Elizabeth train station, the local mayor said. Christian Bollwage said the device exploded shortly after 12.30am on Monday. The FBI agents and police were seen to converge on an apartment near the Elizabeth station. It was not immediately confirmed if there was a connection between the apartment and the explosion. Bollwage told CNN: “The robots that were going in to disarm it cut a wire and it exploded. I don’t know the technological aspect of that. I know there are other devices. I don’t know what they are made up of but they are going to have to be removed and all the fragments from the other pieces are going to have to be picked up so the FBI can investigate this fully.” He told NBC: “Based on the loudness, ...

On Tuesday’s PBS NewsHour, Miles O’Brien visits the nation’s most active explosives test facility, where scientists investigate the bombs that were detonated at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Screen grabs from PBS NewsHour/NOVA It’s a strange phone call to make — dialing up a perfect stranger to ask him if he will explode a bomb for you. After a moment of pause to reflect on the irony, I placed the call to Van Romero at I called him on Thursday, April 25 — ten days after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Miles O’Brien waits in a bunker at New Mexico Tech while a team of experts sets off a pressure cooker bomb. By the time we were setting up our production, law enforcement had found the mangled lid of a pressure cooker on top of a six-story building near the marathon finish line. It was the first time I had ever heard of a pressure cooker bomb — though it turns out it is a weapon of choice for terrorists internationally. It is shockingly low-tech. A few pounds of black powder, some ad hoc shrapnel and a pressure cooker like the one my grandmother used to use. Small enough to fit in a backpack. We knew going in we had to step carefully: we absolutely do not want to show anyone how to build a bomb, or give any unstable viewers any ideas. The tricky part to building a bomb like that is the trigger. Van Romero wouldn’t show us that and we wouldn’t have included it in our report in any event. Often times, the logistics of the shoot are the hardest part — I ...

A mundane kitchen appliance has often been used by bombers around the globe to cook up terror. New York police officials said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon that investigators found "some components indicative of an IED," or improvised explosive device, in what appears to a pressure cooker rigged to explode. The discovery of that device followed an explosion just four blocks away, on West 23rd Street, around 8:30 p.m. Saturday — which injured 29 people. Pressure cookers have long been used to build powerful IEDs, law enforcement officials told NBC News. Related: Such devices are rigged by inserting different kinds of explosive materials into the cooker and attaching a blasting cap onto the cover. At Christmastime in 2000, French police thwarted an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in Strasbourg that was set to use a pressure cooker, and the devices soared in popularity after that, being used in numerous deadly attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. A large fragment of a homemade pressure cooker bomb that the FBI says Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev threw at police during a gunfight in Watertown, Mass. HANDOUT / Reuters By 2004, U.S. officials were so concerned with the potential of similar attacks that the Department of Homeland Security issued an "information bulletin" on the "Potential Terrorist Use of Pressure Cookers." It warned that al-Qaeda training camps were teaching a sprawling network of jihadists in how to convert pressure cookers into IEDs. The...

New York police have named a suspect in the bombing that injured 29 people in Manhattan on Saturday night, as officials backtrack from initial claims that the attack did not have a “foreign” connection. Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalized US citizen born in Afghanistan, was identified by authorities as a suspect on Monday morning. The investigation “might suggest a foreign connection to the action, which would then obviously raise an issue of the foreign nature of this attack”, New York governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN. The identification comes shortly after five additional suspected explosive devices were found in a backpack near a train station in New Jersey, late on Sunday night. One of those devices exploded when a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it near Elizabeth train station, the local mayor said. Christian Bollwage said the device exploded shortly after 12.30am on Monday. The FBI agents and police were seen to converge on an apartment near the Elizabeth station. It was not immediately confirmed if there was a connection between the apartment and the explosion. Bollwage told CNN: “The robots that were going in to disarm it cut a wire and it exploded. I don’t know the technological aspect of that. I know there are other devices. I don’t know what they are made up of but they are going to have to be removed and all the fragments from the other pieces are going to have to be picked up so the FBI can investigate this fully.” He told NBC: “Based on the loudness, ...

> A suspicious device found in New York City may be an improvised explosive device made from a household pressure cooker, according to Police retrieved the device on Saturday night on West 27th Street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Nearby, on West 23rd Street, an explosion injured 29 people, all of whom have since left the hospital, NYPD (opens in a new tab) Sunday. SEE ALSO: Law enforcement sources told reporters that the device on West 27th Street resembled the pressure cooker bombs used in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. NYPD has not officially confirmed any details about the device, except to say that the Bomb Squad is analyzing the package at a "secure NYPD facility in the Bronx," the department (opens in a new tab) Sunday afternoon. A look at the pressure cooker recovered on 27th St. four blocks from the (opens in a new tab) explosion (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) (opens in a new tab) In the kitchen, pressure cookers use an airtight lid to trap steam, which raises its cooking temperature to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius) -- ideal for quickly cooking vegetables, meats or soup. The devices can vary by brand and model, but all pressure cookers generally have the same three components: a pressure regulator, to control and maintain pressure inside the cooker; a vent pipe, which allows excess pressure to be released; and a sealing ring, which creates a pressure-tight seal between the lid...