The nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device packed with nails to increase its wounding ability. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to greater loss of life and injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. The nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon. Such weapons use bits of shrapnel (ball bearings, nail heads, broken razors, darts and bits of metal) to produce a large radius of destruction.
Nail bombs are often used by terrorists, in particular by suicide bombers, since they cause large numbers of casualties when detonated in crowded places. Nail bombs can be detected via electromagnetic sensors and standard metal detectors.
Nail-bombing incidents
On March 6, 1970, in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, three members of the Weather Underground were killed in the accidental explosion of a nail bomb intended to be set off at a non-commissioned officers dance at the Fort Dix, New Jersey Army base.[1]
A number of nail-bombings occurred in 1999 when the Neo-Nazi David Copeland planted several devices in London targeted against ethnic minorities and homosexuals.[2]
On December 31, 2005 an Indonesian marketplace was nail-bombed, and a second undetonated bomb was found nearby.
On June 28, 2007 a nail bomb that was assumed to be a part of a terror plot was discovered in a Mercedes car and was consequently defused by police in the West End of London. There was a second car bomb, further down the street that was apparently scheduled to detonate as evacuees and survivors fled down the street, to a nearby tube station. It is probable this bomb was also a nail/shrapnel device.
On December 21, 2007 a nail bomb was detonated in Sherpao, Pakistan by a suicide bomber. Detonation occurred inside a tightly packed mosque, filled with holiday worshippers. At least 50 people were killed, with over 100 injured.
In the 22 May 2008 Exeter bombing, a nail bomb explosive was detonated in the toilets of Giraffe café in the Princesshay Shopping Centre in Exeter, Devon. The homemade bomb exploded in the attacker's face as he was trying to ready it in the café toilet. Police then found another nail bomb inside the café after everybody had been evacuated.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Robinson, Douglas (March 12, 1970). "Miss Wilkerson's Parents Make Plea For Her to Clarify Toll in Bombing". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20A17FD3C5A157493C0A81788D85F448785F9. Retrieved 2007-12-05. "The parents of a 25-year-old woman missing from a demolished Greenwich Village home where the police said a militant left-wing group was fashioning bombs made an impassioned plea to their daughter yesterday to disclose how many people were in the building at the time of the blast."
- ^ "David Copeland: a quiet introvert, obsessed with Hitler and bombs" by Nick Hopkins and Sarah Hall, The Guardian, June 30, 2000
- ^ "Muslim convert Nicky Reilly pleads guilty to Exeter Giraffe restaurant bomb attempt". The Daily Telegraph. October 16, 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/majornews/3202693/Muslim-convert-Nicky-Reilly-pleads-guilty-to-Exeter-Giraffe-restaurant-bomb-attempt.html.
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