Al-Qaeda Colon Bombers

"It has emerged that an al-Qaeda bomber who died last month while trying to blow up a Saudi prince in Jeddah had hidden the explosives inside his body."

BBC

This recent story made me go back to the post below. I wrote this in March 2007.

Al-Qaeda announced today that it had trained a group of suicide colon bombers to destroy Western airliners. The terrorist’s plan is that the bombers will board aircraft with large quantities of semtex concealed in their colons. They will then detonate their bomb when the plane is airborne. The colon bombs cannot be detected by conventional airport scans or searches.


In response the British Government announced that it would be introducing compulsory rectal examinations at all UK airports as soon as adequate supplies of rubber gloves and lubricant are available. A Government representative admitted that this may cause some disruption, but said the measure was essential in the fight against terrorism.

The Colon Bomber idea is Cory Doctorow’s. It comes from the Boing Boing podcast of the 9th March 2007. Doctorow begins by speculating that perhaps Al-Qaeda is spreading false security threats to ‘mess with our heads’ and entertain themselves.

Doctorow notes that all Al-Qaeda have to do is float a rumour and the political and security jobsworthies in the USA and UK rush around trying to counter the imaginary threat. The recent liquid explosive farce that caused massive disruption at UK airports is a classic example. From there Doctorow goes off on a hilarious riff that produces the colon bomber idea, and a vision of airports full of slippery fingered security men.

Now it has come true.  Mass rectal screening here we come.