60,000lb ammonium nitrate VBIED

[KBScobravert]

Some may remember me mentioning a change in the anti-Afghanistan government forces' tactics a few months back. Well they are getting worse and worse. They just found a 60,000 pound ammonium nitrate bomb. Think OKC bombing, it was only 5,000 pounds.

They have been getting bigger and bigger to the point of defeating out perimeters and anti-vehicle measures.

http://gma.yahoo.com/block-buster-truck-bomb-one-biggest-ever-205450100--abc-news-topstories.html?pt=Array

Afghan nationa security forces near the border with Pakistan recently intercepted one of the largest truck bombs ever built, a massive "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device," or VBIED, packed with some 61,500 pounds of explosives.

By comparison, the truck bomb that all but leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people, was comprised of almost 5,000 lbs. of ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. The same recipe is commonly used in Afghanistan to make a variety of IEDs that have killed hundreds of ISAF troops in small numbers since 2001 -- but typically using dozens of pounds, not thousands.

"We're talking something with the power to raze whole blocks in an American city," Andrew Gumbel, author of last year's "Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed -- And Why It Still Matters," told ABC News.

Army Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesperson for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force's Joint Command in Kabul, told ABC News the massive bomb was discovered Oct. 14 when the truck was stopped in Gardez, Afghanistan. The bomb, he said was, in the military's estimation, "larger in comparison to some others we have seen." Another Defense Department source said that it was one of the largest truck bombs ever known to have been built.

"Vehicle-borne IEDs are one of the most significant threats to everyone in Afghanistan, as we have seen over the summer fighting season," Garver said.

As another point of reference, the TNT truck bomb that destroyed the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut 30 years ago, killing 241 American troops, was about one quarter the size of the Gardez VBIED.

Afghan and U.S. sources linked the recent Hino "jingle" truck, a local variety of cargo truck, piled with TNT to the al Qaeda-aligned Haqqani network, which allegedly has been responsible for almost all major truck bombings in Kabul and in Afghanistan's eastern tribal areas near Pakistan, from which the insurgents originate. A likely target was the U.S. military's Forward Operating Base Goode near Gardez City, the sources told ABC News.

note: FOB Goode aka Lightning has NEVER been hit due to a large burial ground smack dab in the center of the base. this would have been a game changer for the folks there who have been spoiled by that sense of security.

Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the explosives were "placed professionally under firewood" in the Hino truck.

Garver said the truck bomb, which an NDS video showed stopped on a desolate road and loaded with white bags, was intercepted by Afghan security forces. According to Afghan sources, the driver was a Pakistani who set off a grenade in the cab of the truck. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he detonated a suicide vest and killed himself, officials said.

[Snatch Napkin]

Fucking whoa!! That would have been an epic explosion.

[JP135]

Sixty thousand pounds - that's the net weight of a fully loaded semi truck at maximum legal payload. Think about that.

I wonder/fear what is next from the religion of peace.

[Denny]

Heh, never knew that about Lightning. We got hit with several burial grounds on base.

[Chas_svo]

I'm sure glad they stopped it before they got to a base, but is it messed up that I still want to see that fucker go "boom"?

[Broncojohnny]

Park it at the mosque

[Sean88gt]

You would think they would act less Canadian and wait until we left.

[CJ]

Was it in a damn semi trailer?

[The King]

But Pakistan is one of our "allies".

[Forever_frost]

Yet another reason anyone not American should never be permitted near a US base.

[BP]

He had a grenade yet they didn't check him for a suicide vest? That's some darned fine police work.

[Pokulski-Blatz]

Jesus!

[Trip McNeely]

What was the net tonnage at the West, Texas plant that blew? I imagine it would have been similar to that.

[stevo]

What was the net tonnage at the West, Texas plant that blew? I imagine it would have been similar to that.

I want to say they had 80,000 lbs on site.

Stevo

[KBScobravert]

Was it in a damn semi trailer?

Overloaded bongo truck. The pic shows only a rear view.

But Pakistan is one of our "allies".

I blame more of this stuff on Haqqani vs the country of PAK. Not that I don't think they have a role but Haqqani is hell bent on destabilization to keep that cheddar rolling in.

What was the net tonnage at the West, Texas plant that blew? I imagine it would have been similar to that.

Just minus the fuel oil part.

He had a grenade yet they didn't check him for a suicide vest? That's some darned fine police work.

Having seen ANP put a Band-Aid on a scratch for a guy with a severed leg who was bleeding out, I am not shocked.