The New Al-Qaeda Threat - Exploding Breasts

I don't believe this for one minute, but so-called terror exports reckon that women are having bombs implanted in their breasts to bring down planes. Oh dear. I guess that means the idiots at Heathrow will now be insisting on hand-examination of all breasts that pass by them. My favourite complaint letter of all time is one I wrote to BAA after a particularly nasty experience at Terminal 3. I received a full apology from BAA's chief executive which I had laminated and take with me every time I go to the airport!

I doubt that I'd get away with writing a thriller with terrorists using exploding breasts, though I did once write an episode of The Knock based around a plot to smuggle heroin into the country inside breast implants. And that was based on fact!

Anyway, here's the latest story. And if you are worried about flying next to a woman with large breasts, just ask her if she'd mind you giving them the once over, just to put your mind at rest...

Breast-implants packed with explosives could be used by terrorists to blow up an airliner, experts have reportedly warned.

Radical Islamist plastic surgeons could be carrying out the implant operations in lawless areas of Pakistan, security sources are said to warned.

Explosives experts have reportedly said just five ounces of Pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate packed into a breast implant would be enough to blow a “considerable” hole in the side of a jumbo jet.

It would be virtually possible for airport security scanners to detect the explosive if hidden inside a breast, medics have said.
Joseph Farah, a terrorism expert, told The Sun: "Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaeda are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery."

Plastic surgeons may also have inserted the chemical into the buttocks of would-be suicide bombers.

The discovery was reportedly made after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a London-educated Nigerian, attempted to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas day with explosives packed into his underpants.

Hours after his attack failed, British intelligence services reportedly picked up “chatter” from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted them to the bizarre new method.

One plastic surgeon told The Sun: "Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines.

"You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner."