catherine herridge, what have we learned this morning? reporter: early ner washington, the head of the tsa, john pistol spoke at one of these meetings and the type of intelligence, though it was vague, that led to the thermos alert was prior to the christmas holidays, pistol said they had intelligence that al-qaeda in yemen, aqap, may have tried to put the explosive tapt within the thermoses, the same group that tried to plant a cargo plot by taking a similar explosive and putting it into toner cartridges in october. let s listen to pistol from earlier today: this plot was that they would use tapt around the cylinder of the thermos, put it on a passenger or cargo plane and however the initiation, the detonator, they didn t describe, so that s general intelligence. what do we do about that? we put out alerts saying all
effectively is the success here and the lesson we ought to take from this disruption. bomber incompetent? absolutely. the only way you identify, thwart, disrupt these attacks is by community-based efforts. bomber incompetent, to stick on that term, means bomber who left a lot more evidence? sure. it would be one thing if, let s say the fertilizer was properly treated with fuel oil, then you still need a detonator to set it off. an m-88 is not a significant detonator. if they used the traditional, al qaeda, explosive of choice, tapt. it s found in traces of the underwear bomber in december and the shoe bomber, richard reid s shoes back in 2001. so that is a highly volatile explosive. that could actually be detonated even by dropping something. so, there are signatures and it just it strikes me as odd. we could find out what this was,
he has the see it, say it program. the vendor who identified the problem mentioned it. you showed it early. citizens taking responsibility, notifying police officers so they can respond, it s the success here. it s the lesson we ought to take. bomber incompetent? absolutely. the only way to identify and disrupt these attacks is by the community based efforts. bomber incompetent, to stick on that term, means bomber who left more evidence. sure. it would be one thing if, let s say the fertilizer was properly treated with fuel oil, then you still need a detonator to set it off. an m-88 is not significant. if they used the traditional, al qaeda, explosive of choice, tapt. it s found in traces of the
yet, but a very worrying new detail. the source also telling me that this was a crude device, a poorly made device as well. and, of course, it didn t go off. and if this was tapt, that needs to be confirmed, but if it was tapt, if it had gone off you could have seen dozens of casualties, perhaps very few people getting out of that train carriage alive. it s a high explosive. many times more powerful than the boston devices were. one thing we know we ve had to learn about tatp it s very unstable and the fact that it s crude but involves tapt points you where. the fact it s poorly made could indicate this was somebody who had no training, they were trying to do it off the internet. it s possible that the person who did this could have got training overseas and just didn t do it, particularly well. you re right, tatp what is they
what are they? my wife has some mix tapes from high school she will not throw out. #way too early. best answers later in the program. and still ahead, taking team spirit to a whole new level. the play that saved the day for a brazilian soccer team, but it had unintended consequences. plus the controversial moment a wheel of fortune that cost the comes ten tapt a chance at a million bucks. words of a terrorist appear in one of america s most distinguished news papers this morning. the publication of the unabomber s manifesto is the work of the washington post and the new york times . the document calls for worldwide revolution against industrialized society.