The thwarted car bomb in New York was made rudimentarily of gasoline, propane and firecrackers that may not have caused major damage even if it went off --PHOTO: REUTERS
'It does not appear, from our opinion, to be the most sophisticated device,' FBI deputy director John Pistole told reporters. 'There are a number of opportunities for the device to fail.' The main explosives - which failed to detonate - were three, 75l tanks of propane and two cans of gasoline, Mr Pistole said.
However, he said that M-88 firecrackers went off. The Pathfinder contained more than 110kg of the firecrackers stuffed inside a pressure cooker, and another 40 firecrackers inside a small can, as well as sacks of inert fertiliser. Even if the entire car bomb had gone off, it would 'probably not' have caused the kind of explosion that destroyed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, Mr Pistole said.The Oklahoma City bomb, for which right-wing militant Timothy McVeigh was executed, was made of ammonium-nitrate fertiliser and fuel oil. Mr Pistole said the FBI had taken most of the evidence from Times Square to a laboratory in the Washington suburb of Quantico, Virginia, to further assess what would have happened if the bomb had exploded.
Regardless of the level of the device's sophistication, authorities said they did not doubt Shahzad's intentions. 'Make no mistake. Although this car bomb failed to properly detonate, this plot was a very serious attempt,' Attorney General Eric Holder said. 'If successful, it could have resulted in a lethal terrorist attack causing death and destruction in the heart of New York City.'
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