Experts Say Explosives In Car Trunk Were Unlikely To Harm Naval Station

By ELAINE SILVESTRINI The Tampa Tribune

Published: Sep 26, 2007

TAMPA - When two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were charged with having explosives in their trunk, a South Carolina sheriff said the men may have targeted a nearby naval weapons station.

Determining what exactly Ahmed Mohamed and Youssef Megahed planned to do with the devices illustrates "the fundamental problem we have across the board when we try to deal with terrorism," said explosives expert, Michael Hopmeier, president of Unconventional Concepts, an engineering and consulting firm.

Discerning whether the two students posed a threat is complicated by the fact that Hopmeier and other experts contacted by The Tampa Tribune question whether the devices described by a federal prosecutor could have done much damage.

"Anything can be a terrorist device," Hopmeier said. "You can kill somebody with a ballpoint pen or a rolled-up newspaper or a book of matches. The question is not the technology but the intent. … Whether they caught them with anything or nothing in the back of their car doesn't speak to whether they are terrorists or would-be terrorists."

A lack of direct evidence about the students' intent was central to a federal magistrate's decision that one of the men should be released on bail under restrictive conditions. That ruling is under appeal, and both men remain behind bars. The students are scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 3.

When a federal prosecutor struggled during the bail hearing to convince the judge that one of the students is too dangerous to be released, he didn't mention the military installation. The prosecutor told the judge about "jihadi" images found on a laptop computer and about the men's travels and ties abroad but said he had no direct information on what the students intended to do with the devices.

A defense attorney says the idea that the men could threaten the heavily fortified military facility is far-fetched.

Deputies, backed up by bomb technicians, described the devices in the trunk as pipe bombs.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hoffer said they are not pipe bombs or destructive devices.

Station Wasn't Compromised

An arrest report shows that Berkeley County, S.C., deputies stopped the men, Mohamed, 26, and Megahed, 21, about seven miles from the Goose Creek Naval Weapons Station.

Andrew Savage, Megahed's attorney in South Carolina, said there was no evidence the men could have done anything to compromise the military installation. "They didn't have anything in their car that would confront the armed guards," Savage said. "They didn't have any surveillance material; they didn't have binoculars; they didn't have anything to launch an attack on the United States military."

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has been critical of the Justice Department's terrorism prosecutions, said, "Anyone driving through the South is likely to be within close proximity of some military site or target of interest. If they had been crossing a bridge [when they were pulled over], it's very easy to isolate sinister acts to create a circumstantial case. The job of the defense is to show that for every sinister fact, there can be an equally compelling, innocent explanation."

A federal indictment unsealed Aug. 31 charges both men with transporting explosives without a permit and Mohamed with trying to help terrorists by teaching or demonstrating the use of explosives. That charge stems from a video Hoffer said Mohamed admitted posting to the YouTube Web site in which he showed how to turn a remote-controlled toy car into a bomb detonator. On the video, Mohamed said the detonator could "save one who wants to be a martyr for another day, another battle," Hoffer said.

Materials' Potency Challenged

During a bail hearing for Megahed, Hoffer described the devices found in the trunk as three pieces of PVC pipe, each a foot long or shorter. They were, Hoffer said, filled with a "low-grade explosive" mixture of potassium nitrate, Karo syrup and kitty litter, with the litter used as a binder to keep the substance from coming out of the pipes, which did not have caps. Also in the car was a 20-foot length of safety fuse and a container of gasoline.

Although the fuse and potassium nitrate are included in the federal law that lists regulated explosives, experts say pipe bombs typically are made of metal and have caps on the ends so pressure can be built up to create an explosion.

The devices that Hoffer described are "not the most powerful combination" as far as explosives are concerned, said Craig Gundry, consultant on anti-terrorism matters for Critical Intervention Services, a private security and intelligence firm in Clearwater. He added, however, that "the combination of circumstances is certainly suspicious."

Gundry said his gut reaction is that the devices were not intended to be used in terrorism, but "these are certainly individuals interested in terrorism and experimenting."

Another expert said the students might have been part of something larger.

"Maybe they were meeting up with other people," said Steve Purl, chief operating officer of Grand Investigative Security Services in St. Petersburg. "Maybe it was going to be used as some sort of distraction device."

The devices "would have to explode within a foot of you" to do any damage, Purl said. They would need some kind of initiator, an electronic device or an explosive device, to detonate. The filled PVC pipes "were more of a slow-burning distraction type device."

The content of the pipes would create "more of a fireball than an explosion," said Hopmeier, whose firm is based in Mary Esther. He compared it to the flash created by the powder old-time photographers used to light subjects.

"It might have caused a burst of flame," Hopmeier said. "I guess if you had hundreds of pounds of it, maybe it might do something.

"It sounds like the hazard was more along the lines of someone using large fireworks as opposed to someone using explosives," Hopmeier said.

Both Purl and Gundry, however, said the devices were not fireworks.

Even if they were fireworks, depending on the amount, taking them across state lines without a permit could be enough for a conviction on the explosives transporting charge. "To the extent they're fireworks, it would be a violation committed by tens of thousands of people every year," Turley said.

YouTube Video Also Downplayed

Although Hoffer did not disclose many details about the YouTube video, experts said the idea of using toys as remote bomb detonators is nothing new. They said they doubt sophisticated terrorists would learn anything from Mohamed's YouTube video.

"I'm inclined not to make a big deal about it," Purl said. "I assure you, by prosecuting him, the video is going to be seen by way more people. It's like banning a book."

Turley, the law professor, said prosecutors are going to have a hard time making a case that a YouTube video constitutes support of terrorists. "Usually, cases involving training of terrorists encompass direct educational or training efforts, someone who is directing known individuals in how to engage in terrorist activities," he said. "YouTube would be a strange to place attempt to train a future al-Qaida terrorist. There are plenty of nonterrorist students who have taped a … YouTube video because of their fascination with these devices."

One tracker disagrees with Turley, saying that YouTube is a popular site among jihadists.

"There is nothing at all 'strange' about jihadist use of YouTube," said A. Aaron Weisburd, founder of the jihadi tracking Web site Internet Haganah and director of the Society for Internet Research, a nonprofit counterterrorism research organization. "It suits their purposes quite well."

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.