What kinds of weapons do terrorists like to use?

What kinds of weapons do terrorists like to use?

Erroll Southers (Former Deputy Director of the California Department of Homeland Security) gives expert video advice on: What kinds of weapons do terrorists like to use?; How are terrorist bombs typically used?; How likely am I to be a victim of a terrorist bomb? and more...

Bombs work. Bombs are the most effective terrorist tool that there is. That is the reason that we focus so much on IEDs or improvised explosive devices. With all due respect to all the other things that we talk about, bioterror, agroterror, the most important thing to remember is that bombs are what people are using around the world. Improvised explosive devises run the gamut. We've seen them evolve over time. I think the more effective ones are peroxide based. You've probably heard of TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, HMTD, they're all peroxide based and what makes them so effective is they are easy to make, ingredients you can buy out of a local store, recipes, we have recipes that are on the internet. The bad part about that is we've seen a fair amount of people blow themselves up. Ehud Keinan is the world's leading expert in TATP, he's at Technion in Haifa, Israel, is a colleague of mine. He estimates about 40% of the people there, in Nablos, which they believe is the heart of TATP, have probably blown themselves up trying to make bombs. They're very useful, you can kill a lot of people, they're easy to transport, they're easy to make, and they're very effective.