Time bomb

Time bomb  (bomb)
Type	technology

Fr Patrick Ryan bought 400 Memopark Swiss timers

A time bomb or Timer and Power Unit (TPU) is a bomb that is triggered by a timer which can delay detonation by hours, weeks or months. Since the 1970s, time bombs with Memopark timers have been employed extensively by the Provisional IRA both in Northern Ireland and on the British mainland.

In the 1980s, long-delay TPUs were allegedly used for the Regent's Park bombing and the Brighton bombing, and a so-called ice-cube timer (barometric trigger) for the Lockerbie bombing.

Construction

The explosive charge is the main component of any bomb, and makes up most of the size and weight of it. It is the damaging element of the bomb (along with any fragments or shrapnel the deflagration might produce with its container or neighbouring objects). The explosive charge is detonated by a detonator.

A time bomb's timing mechanism may be professionally manufactured, either separately or as part of the device, or it may be improvised from an ordinary household timer such as a wind-up alarm clock, wrist watch, digital kitchen timer, or a laptop computer.

Types

Types of time bombs include:

• Delayed-action bomb (bombs dropped by aircraft with a delay to increase damage/disruption)
• Improvised explosive device (IED) ("home-made" bombs with a delay to allow the person placing the bomb to escape)
• Limpet mine (attached to enemy ships by naval divers)

Notable TPU incidents

Year	Event	Location	Perpetrator(s)	Deaths	Injuries	Comments
1871	Attack on the Mosel (ship)	Bremerhaven	Alexander Keith, Jr.	80	unknown	bomb set for insurance fraud purposes; detonated prematurely
1910	Los Angeles Times bombing	Los Angeles	John J. McNamara and James B. McNamara	21	100	Union-related action
1916	Preparedness Day Bombing	San Francisco	Labour leaders	10	40	Isolationist political action
1920	Wall Street bombing	New York City	Anarchists (suspected)	38	400	Followed other bombings in 1919
1939	Bürgerbräukeller	Munich	Georg Elser	7	63	Failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler
1942	St Nazaire Raid	St Nazaire, France (wartime)	Royal Navy, British Commandos	590	unknown	To damage port facilities being used by enemy forces
1944	July Plot	Wolf's Lair, Poland (wartime)	German Resistance	4	?	Failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler
1955	United Airlines Flight 629	over Longmont, Colorado, USA	Jack Gilbert Graham	44	0	Murder; insurance fraud
1972	Aldershot Bombing	Aldershot, UK	IRA	7	18	A 280 lb time bomb in a car
1974	M62 Coach Bombing	West Yorkshire	IRA	12	38	Continuing anti-British campaign
1974	Birmingham pub bombings	Birmingham, UK	IRA (suspected)	21	182	Continuing anti-British campaign
1974	Guildford pub bombings	Guildford, UK	IRA	5	65	Targeted against Army personnel
1977	Lucona sinking	Indian Ocean	Udo Proksch	6	0	Attempted insurance fraud
1982	Regent's Park bombing	Beneath the bandstand in London's Regent's Park	IRA	7	31	Targeted against Army bandsmen
1983	Church Street bombing	Pretoria, South Africa	probably Department of Military Intelligence	19	217	False flag by apartheid regime to blame ANC
1983	Harrods bombing	Knightsbridge, London	IRA	6	90	Car bomb
1984	Brighton hotel bombing	Brighton, UK	IRA, using long-delay MST-13 Timer	5	31	Attempt to assassinate PM Margaret Thatcher
1986	La Belle discotheque bombing	West Berlin	probably Mossad	3	230	False flag operation to blame Libya
1986	El Al Flight 016	Heathrow, UK	probably Mossad	Nil	Nil	False flag operation to blame Syria
1987	Korean Air Flight 858	Andaman Sea	North Korea	115 (all)	0	State "terrorism" against South Korea
1987	Remembrance Day bombing	Enniskillen, Northern Ireland	IRA	12	63	Continuing anti-British campaign
1988	Pan Am Flight 103	Above Lockerbie, Scotland	South African CCB with possible help from CIA, SIS and Mossad	259 (all)	0	Targeting UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson
1989	UTA Flight 772	Over the Sahara Desert (Niger)	possibly CIA and/or MI6	170 (all)	0	Persuading France to vote for UNSCR 748 (1992) which imposed sanctions on Libya
1989	Deal barracks bombing	Deal, Kent, UK	IRA	11	21	Targeted against military personnel
1994	Philippine Airlines Flight 434	Between Cebu and Tokyo	Ramzi Yousef	1	10	Foiled attempt.
1996	Centennial Olympic Park bombing	Atlanta, Georgia, USA	Eric Rudolph	1	111	Politically-motivated anti-abortionist; occurred during 1996 Summer Olympics.
1998	Omagh bombing	Omagh, Northern Ireland	IRA	29	220	Worst single incident loss of life during the anti-British campaign.
1999	Russian apartment bombings	Buynaksk Moscow Volgodonsk	unknown	293	651	4 bombs over 4 days; purpose unknown.
2006	Moscow market bombing	Moscow	Racist organisation	13	46	Racially motivated attack

Time bombs in fiction

Time bombs are common plot devices used in action/thriller TV series, cartoons, films and video games, where the hero often escapes the blast area or defuses the bomb at the last second. Many fictional time bombs are improvised, and usually involve a beeping sound with a large prominent countdown timer (on rare occasions, the timer will count up).

Such fictional appearances include:

• Kojak, Knight Rider, MacGyver, Get Smart, Men in Black: The Series, 24, Sonic X, Hogan's Heroes, VR Troopers, and Walker, Texas Ranger on television;
• James Bond: Goldfinger, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Hindenburg, The Mask, The Peacemaker, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, Battle Royale, Battle Royale 2: Requiem and New Police Story in film;
• Counter-Strike, Sonic Adventure 2, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Red Faction, Halo, F-Zero GX, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Trauma Center: Under The Knife, Trauma Center Second Opinion and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and
• Songs by The Old 97's, Dave Matthews Band, Chumbawamba, Godsmack, The Format, Rancid, Buckcherry, The Dismemberment Plan, Faber Drive and Beck titled "Time bomb" or "Timebomb".
• The popular Super NES video game Chrono Trigger takes its name from the timer-detonator assembly of a time bomb, although the game itself has nothing to do with time bombs but with time travel instead.

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:The plot to blow up El Al Flight 016	Article	6 April 2019	Marianne Colloms Dick Weindling	Two weeks after Nezar Hindawi's trial, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac was interviewed on tape by Arnaud de Borchgrave, the editor of the Washington Times. When he was asked about the attempt to blow up the El Al plane Chirac said he had been told by the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher that they believe it had been set up by Mossad agents to destabilise Syria's Assad regime.

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 18 February 2015.
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