It's been two and a half weeks since the bombing of an Airbus 321 in Somalia, and though notorious terrorist group al Shabaab has finally stepped up to claim responsibility for the attack, investigators have yet to trace the person responsible for building the explosive device. That, and not the organization responsible, should be the authorities' focus as they uncover more details surrounding the explosion on Daallo flight D159.
The flight itself was an unlikely target, devoid of high-ranking officials or any apparent political significance. Moreover, the bombing was arguably a failure; though one passenger — likely the bomber — was killed, the aircraft landed safely after the attack Feb. 2.
But if the flight's low altitude limited the bomb's effectiveness, that does nothing to change its level of sophistication. Whoever constructed the device managed to conceal military-grade TNT in an ordinary-looking laptop without arousing any suspicion when it went through the X-ray machine at Mogadishu airport. That is assuming there wasn't inside help involved: The Somali government released a video allegedly showing two airport employees handing the laptop to the bomber, in plain view of a CCTV camera. Either way, if the device had detonated at flight altitude, the initial explosion would likely have set off another blast in the fuel tank, which would undoubtedly have brought the entire plane down. The whole affair is reminiscent of another case I worked years ago: the downing of TWA flight 840.
The New Reign of Terror
In 1986, my colleagues and I were caught up in two intertwined wars behind the scenes: One, we were constantly monitoring and countering the operations of Soviet intelligence operatives; two, we were dealing with a growingly complex web of non-state terrorist organizations, many of which had state sponsors. In the 1980s, one particularly troublesome state sponsor was Libya, whose now-infamous president, Moammar Gadhafi, actively supported Palestinian terrorist Sabri al-Banna, also known as Abu Nidal.
At the time, Libya and the U.S. government were in a quarrel over the Gulf of Sidra, on the northern Libyan coast, and in March 1986 Libyan and U.S. security forces clashed in the disputed waters. Days later, on April 2, Trans World Airlines flight 840 was nearing its destination in Athens when an explosion ripped a hole in the plane's side. Four American passengers, including an 8-month-old child, were ejected through the hole to their deaths below. Seven others on the aircraft were injured by shrapnel as the cabin suffered a rapid decompression, but the pilots managed to land the damaged aircraft. The bodies of three of the four victims were later recovered from a meadow; the fourth was found in the sea.
Soon after authorities cited a bomb (hidden beneath a seat) as the cause, someone publicly claimed responsibility: a group calling itself the "Arab Revolutionary Cells," a cover name for the militant pro-Palestinian Abu Nidal Organization. Abu Nidal, not so incidentally, was the very pro-Palestinian figurehead whose close ties to Libya had helped bring Gadhafi into conflict with Washington. Indeed, when a man claiming to represent the Abu Nidal Organization made three calls to the Western press to take responsibility for the attack, he explicitly cited the Gulf of Sidra incident as one of the triggers of the operation.
Tracking Down the Bombmaker
In the Somali aircraft bombing, much attention has been paid to the man who carried the explosives-laden computer on board. Security personnel at Mogadishu airport in fact handed Abdullahi Abdisalam Borle the laptop on his way through security, which raises even more concerns about the level of background investigation these employees undergo.
But the focus, rather than being on the attacker himself, should be on the person who constructed the explosive. My peers and I learned the hard way in the hunt for the master bomber Ramzi Yousef — linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the bombing of Philippine Airlines flight 434, and a co-conspirator in the Bojinka aviation plot — that tracking down not just the attacker but the bombmaker is critical to stopping and disrupting future attacks. In the wake of the TWA flight 840 bombing, as part of that effort, the U.S. government offered an enormous reward for any information that could lead to the source of the bomb.
Surprisingly, there actually aren't that many people in the world capable of constructing and using sophisticated explosive devices properly. Bombmaking is a highly sought-after skill that, for a terrorist group, can make the difference between spewing impotent rhetoric and causing massive, headline-generating casualties. Some modern groups are doing better than others — al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for example, for years utilized the talents of Ibrahim al-Asiri, an innovative bombmaker who adapted his designs to evade ever-improving security measures. It was his creativity behind such plots as the 2009 Christmas Day bombing attempt.
If it really was al Shabaab that orchestrated the Feb. 2 attack, it would be the first sign that the group has access to a highly skilled bombmaker like al-Asiri. Given the limited number of people who have those skills and the disproportionate damage they can cause, tracking down that individual should be a top priority for those doing the follow-up investigation.
Production Editor: Margaret Fox
