Palestinian bus bomber used Boston Marathon-style pressure cooker device
on January 03, 2014
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Via The Times of Israel, Thwarted Israeli bus blast similar to Boston bombings:
The bomb that tore through a Dan No. 240 bus in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam on December 22 was assembled in a pressure cooker and activated by cellphone, much like the devices that killed three people and wounded hundreds more during the Boston Marathon in April 2013, the Shin Bet investigation has revealed.... The bomb, which exploded at the corner of Mivtza Sinai and Katzenelson streets in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam, caused no injuries because an alert passenger had noticed the bag containing the device left unattended by the bus’s rear door. The driver evacuated the bus, and the device was detonated as an Israeli sapper attempted to defuse it. The bus was wrecked, but there were no injuries.... According to information released by the Shin Bet, the bomb, consisted of two kilograms of improvised explosives surrounded by nails and screws and stuffed into a pressure cooker. This was a method akin to the one used by Boston murderers, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It was made popular by an al-Qaeda manual placed online.More on the plot, via Haaretz:
Israeli security forces carried out a series of arrests in the West Bank city of Bethlehem following the attack, detaining members of the Islamic Jihad militant group. The Shin Bet believes that two of the central suspects in the plot to bomb the bus are former security prisoners in Israel: Shahada Ta'amri, 24, and his 21-year-old brother Hamdi Ta'amri, a former cadet in the Jericho Police officers' course. Another central suspect was named as Yousef Salame, 22.
