In response to the rising concern of the American public over illegal bombings, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms asked the National Research Council to examine possible mechanisms for reducing this threat. The committee examined four approaches to reducing the bombing threat: addition of detection markers to explosives for pre-blast detection, addition of identification taggants to explosives for post-blast identification of bombers, possible means to render common explosive materials inert, and placing controls on explosives and their precursors. The book makes several recommendations to reduce the number of criminal bombings in this country.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are a type of unconventional explosive weapon that can be deployed in a variety of ways, and can cause loss of life, injury, and property damage in both military and civilian environments. Terrorists, violent extremists, and criminals often choose IEDs because the ingredients, components, and instructions required to make IEDs are highly accessible. In many cases, precursor chemicals enable this criminal use of IEDs because they are used in the manufacture of homemade explosives (HMEs), which are often used as a component of IEDs. Many precursor chemicals are frequently used in industrial manufacturing and may be available as commercial products for personal use. Guides for making HMEs and instructions for constructing IEDs are widely available and can be easily found on the internet. Other countries restrict access to precursor chemicals in an effort to reduce the opportunity for HMEs to be used in IEDs. Although IED attacks have been less frequent in the United States than in other countries, IEDs remain a persistent domestic threat. Restricting access to precursor chemicals might contribute to reducing the threat of IED attacks and in turn prevent potentially devastating bombings, save lives, and reduce financial impacts. Reducing the Threat of Improvised Explosive Device Attacks by Restricting Access to Explosive Precursor Chemicals prioritizes precursor chemicals that can be used to make HMEs and analyzes the movement of those chemicals through United States commercial supply chains and identifies potential vulnerabilities. This report examines current United States and international regulation of the chemicals, and compares the economic, security, and other tradeoffs among potential control strategies.

Detection and quantification of trace chemicals is a major thrust of analytical chemistry. In recent years much effort has been spent developing detection systems for priority pollutants. Less mature are the detections of substances of interest to law enforcement and security personnel:in particular explosives. This volume will discuss the detection of these, not only setting out the theoretical fundamentals, but also emphasizing the remarkable developments in the last decade. Terrorist events—airplanes blown out of the sky (PanAm 103 over Lockerbie) and attacks on U.S. and European cities (Trade Center in New York and the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, railways in London and Madrid)--emphasize the danger of concealed explosives. However, since most explosives release little vapor, it was not possible to detect them by technology used on most organic substances. After PanAm 103 was downed over Scotland, the U.S. Congress requested automatic explosive detection equipment be placed in airports. This volume outlines the history of explosive detection research, the developments along the way, present day technologies, and what we think the future holds. - Written by experts in the field who set out both the scientific issues and the practical context with authority - Discusses and describes the threat - Describes the theoretical background and practical applications of both trace and bulk explosives detection