FBI Works to Counter Kitchen Sink Bomb

Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.

Ten years ago, peroxide-based bombs were mostly the work of young pranksters. But the easy-to-make yet deadly chemical cocktails were embraced in the late 1990s by Palestinian militants and homicide bombers bent on killing large groups of people.

Now, Yeager says, such explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S.

“Every serious terrorist group knows about them and knows how to make them,” Yeager said. The forensic scientist heads the explosives unit at the FBI’s laboratory.

The bombs are made by mixing chemicals used in common household items and easily found at drugstores or hardware stores. Experts know them as TATP, short for triacetone triperoxide, and HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.

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