- On Wednesday, May 25, 2005 Randy McDaniel, 50, a driver
with J & M Transport of Cabot, Arkansas picked up a 51,000-pound load
of urea fertilizer in Little Rock. Operating a red 1996 Volvo tractor with
Arkansas plate F254068 with a J & M Transport logo on the door and
a towing white trailer with Oklahoma plate 2106FB, McDaniel never made
it to his destination in Stuttgart, Arkansas.
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- A week later - on Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - Highway Information
Sharing and Analysis Center issued a bulletin about the missing J &
M Transport truck, the driver and cargo http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/missingtruck6205.pdf
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- The FBI became involved, at that time citing the potential
for the cargo to be used as a critical component in a fertilizer-based
explosive. BOLO,s or "Be on the Lookout bulletins were issued, and
FBI agents searched the Arkansas area for the missing truck, its driver
and contents.
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- On Friday, June 3, 2005, an employee of Little Rock Wastewater
Utilities spotted the missing truck abandoned behind Halbert Pipe &
Steel Company Inc, 400 North Olive Street in North Little Rock while running
an errand for the company. The driver and the 51,000 pounds of urea fertilizer
were missing, and notable is that the location where the truck was found
was in close proximity to a cross-country Interstate.
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- Later that day, the FBI called off their search for the
missing fertilizer as they determined that the cargo "was not particularly
dangerous." According to FBI spokesman Special Agent Steve Frazier,
the Terrorism Task Force "determined that the missing fertilizer was
urea-based and used primarily for grass and rice - not the more hazardous
nitrate-based fertilizer.
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- As of today, McDaniel and the fertilizer are still missing,
and McDaniel has not been in contact with his girlfriend or family members
since the time of his May 25th disappearance. Currently, the theft of the
fertilizer is being investigated as a criminal matter by the local authorities
rather than a potential terrorist threat as initially classified.
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- Memories of February 26, 1993
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- At 12:17 pm on February 26, 1993, an explosion ripped
through multiple levels of the World Trade Center parking garage, killing
six people and injuring over one thousand more. Few people remember or
fully understand the extent of the damage caused by that bomb, contained
in a truck parked on the B-2 level of the North Tower,s parking garage.
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- The blast created a crater six stories high, tearing
through steel and reinforced concrete nearly a foot thick on two levels
above the bomb, leaving a gaping 18, by 22, hole in the lobby of the Vista
Hotel. The downward blast pulverized 15,000 square feet of concrete and
obliterated the steel reinforcements three stories downward. The blast
also cracked a cast-iron pipe that brought water from the Hudson into the
air conditioning system, flooding the lower areas. It also ripped a 7 ton
steel support brace and tossed it 40 feet. The main explosive component
of the bomb was 1,200 pounds of urea nitrate fertilizer.
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- As documented by Dr. Laurie Mylroie in The War Against
America, the urea nitrate was divided up into manageable weights, wrapped
in plastic and placed into boxes in the cargo area of the truck. The trigger
was nitroglycerine fixed into the urea nitrate and additional components
were added to the cargo to give it increased effectiveness.
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- Urea Fertilizers as Explosives
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- Urea fertilizer is the most common fertilizer used and
accounts for 40 percent of worldwide fertilizer use, according to the Fertilizer
Institute. Explosives made of urea nitrate have been used in the Middle
East, South America, Pakistan and the United States prior to the World
Trade Center bombing. While urea fertilizer would not necessarily be the
method of choice for a truck bomb, its effectiveness when turned into urea
nitrate has already been proven, and as it is more available than the more
volatile compounds, its use as a bomb component cannot be discounted. Because
of its chemical structure, urea fertilizer is more stable than ammonium
nitrate, the component used in the April 19, 1995 truck bomb in Oklahoma
City that claimed 171 lives. Although it takes more knowledge in chemistry
to produce a powerful explosive from urea fertilizer, it can and obviously
has been done - with deadly results.
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