By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK- Inside an ordinary-looking trailer in Brooklyn, police have recreated the ramshackle apartment used by terrorists to cook up the explosives used last year in the suicide bombings of the London transit system.
Strewn about are empty bottles of hydrogen peroxide and containers of pepper. Filthy hot plates sit on a counter. Industrial fans provide ventilation.
The New York Police Department uses the replica as a training tool to help patrol officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel recognize bomb-making lairs that could be mistaken for a methamphetamine laboratory or simply a messy home, NYPD officials said Wednesday at a counterterrorism conference.
“It’s not that easy to identify to the uninitiated,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Kelly and other NYPD officials addressed dozens of law enforcement officials from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania at the start of a two-day seminar at police headquarters.
The group was to tour the replica apartment to dramatize what the NYPD officials described as a mounting threat of homegrown terrorists _ possibly young men incited by radical rhetoric found on the Internet _ who could hatch plots in suburbs and other outlying communities.
“It’s reasonable to assume that any attack on New York City may very well be put together _ the logistics, the planning aspects of the plot _ outside the city,” Kelly said.
NYPD officials have done an exhaustive study of last year’s London bombing, believing it could serve as a template for future strikes against targets in the city. At Wednesday’s conference, they noted that the four suicide bombers lived well north of London, near Leeds, and commuted by car and rail to launch a coordinated attack on three subway trains and a bus, killing 52 people and wounding more than 700.
In the aftermath, police in New York had intelligence officers simulate the commute by driving from Albany to Poughkeepsie, where they caught a train to Grand Central Terminal.
“The reason we did that was to give us a frame of reference, to give us some sense of the challenges someone might face in doing something similar here in New York,” Kelly said. “It also highlighted the regional aspect of the threat.”
The mock-up of the apartment that the bombers had rented in Leeds for their makeshift lab was recreated with the help of photos and information provided by British authorities, NYPD officials said. Investigators believe the suicide bombers cooked up their explosives on hot plates using mundane items like hydrogen peroxide and pepper.