Bombs were made from over the counter ingredients

THE explosive used by the London bombers is nicknamed the Mother of Satan.

It’s highly volatile, can be reasonably easily prepared from ingredients available over the counter in chemists and hardware shops, and cannot be detected by sniffer dogs.

TATP, or acetone peroxide, is produced by mixing hydrogen peroxide, which is found in hair bleach, acetone, found in nail polish removers, and sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, or drain cleaner.

When enough of each of the ingredients in pure form are mixed together, the results are deadly. It is extremely volatile and friction, temperature change and impact can trigger an explosion.

This was the reason for the mass evacuation of people living close to where the mixture was discovered in a bath in a house in Leeds.

Even trained chemists have been injured while handling the mixture.

It is most commonly used by Palestinian suicide bombers. As many as 40 bomb-makers have died or been seriously injured mixing and compressing the explosives.

Apart from Israel, TATP was used by Richard Reid, a British man who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. The explosive mixture, which had other combustible ingredients, were in his shoe.

The explosives can be detonated by something as simple as the filament of a lightbulb. The bulb is smashed and the wire covered in a flammable liquid so that when the light is switched on, the heat detonates the explosives.

It was initially reported the explosives were military or commercial grade. The revelation that the bombs were made up of TATP has alarmed forensic experts and security chiefs in Britain.

There are fears other amateur bomb makers could produce more of the explosives.

One security source said yesterday: “This is a shocking development in the sense that earlier ideas about commercial or military grade explosive being used in the bombs themselves would therefore seem to be wrong.”

The source added that the confirmation that it is TATP led to police widening the cordon around the house in Beeston as well as setting up a no-fly zone.

While the information on how to make TATP bombs is readily available on the internet, a trained chemist would find it even easier to procure the right ingredients and produce the deadly mixture.

In addition, it is believed that young radicals were given training in TATP bomb making skills in Afghanistan.

One of the huge advantages for suicide bombers is that the explosives cannot be detected by sniffer dogs. However, Israeli chemists are working on a device that it is hoped will be able to detect the explosives.