By Ken Dilanian -
NBC News
Attacked by paranoia and a follower of several conspiracy theories, Anthony Quinn Warner parked a vehicle in the middle of a Nashville, Tennessee, tourist district early on Christmas 2020 and caused the largest car bomb explosion in the United States in 25 years, according to authorities.
More than 60 buildings were affected, including a key headquarters of the mobile phone company AT&T, causing service interruptions in three states.
Warner
was the only person who died
because he gave a warning that the bomb was going to explode at 1:22 a.m.
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What happened, however, was a wake-up call for the authorities.
One of the most alarming aspects of the event is that Warner was able to build, test and detonate such a large and sophisticated device with materials that it bought in retail stores, just as two anti-government radicals did
when they blew up a federal building in Oklahoma
City in 1995.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as part of its response to these types of events, partnered with the FBI to publicize Operation Flashpoint, the latest version of an effort that the Government is leading It has been around for some time to motivate local merchants to report suspicious purchases of household materials that can be used to make bombs.
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The announcement comes at a time when the Justice Department is reorganizing to better fight
domestic terrorism.
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"
At the moment, we have about 250,000 stores nationwide that sell products that contain these explosive chemical precursors," Lisa Parpachate, supervising special agent for the FBI's weapons of mass destruction directorate, told our sister network NBC News.
"We need them to report when they see suspicious behavior around this. We have nefarious actors and bad people who want to buy these products specifically for the chemicals they contain and then use them to make bombs to potentially harm people," he added.
Bomb incidents are rising sharply in the United States - there were 428 in 2020, 71% more than the previous year, according to DHS.
And this is happening as the government is concerned about the rise in domestic extremism, which, according to authorities,
is now the most urgent terrorist threat
to the safety of Americans.
Investigators work near the scene of an explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, on December 26, 2020.Harrison McClary / REUTERS
Matthew Olsen, deputy attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Division of Homeland Security, told Congress on Tuesday that he was creating a domestic terrorism unit.
He added that the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists had more than doubled since spring 2020.
"The threat posed by domestic terrorism
is increasing
," Olsen told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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"We face heightened threat from violent domestic extremists - that is, individuals in the United States who seek to commit violent criminal acts to further social or political goals."
Most of the bombing incidents were not terrorism.
The list includes incidents in which thieves, for example,
tried to open ATMs.
But the two explosive devices placed in front of the Republican and Democratic headquarters in Washington, DC, the night before the January 6 riots - unsolved crimes - were homemade tube bombs, according to authorities.
"Certainly, in my professional career, I think this is the highest point it has ever been to," said David Mussington, deputy executive director for infrastructure security at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). its acronym in English).
Chuck Leas, who runs Operation Flashpoint for CISA, said that many of the pumps are built from "
products that we use every day in our home
."
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"They are safe to use, but can also be used in an unintended way," Leas said.
“Different amounts and combinations can be used to make an explosive.
What we are trying to do is observe suspicious shopping behaviors that people are engaging in in stores and have them reported to 1-800-Call-FBI.
It is very important to "see something and say something," he said.
The list of potential bomb-making gadgets is long, including obvious items, such as ammonium nitrate fertilizer, kerosene, and hydrogen peroxide, and less obvious ones, such as flour, cinnamon, and cocoa, according to the docs. of the government.
Authorities say large hardware chains such as Home Depot and Lowe's are aware of suspicious buying patterns and know how to report them, so they are targeting local merchants, holding a series of road shows across the country to raise awareness. .
At the FBI's explosives training camp in Quantico, Virginia, analysts study the impact of various sizes of homemade bombs by safely constructing and detonating them.
“It doesn't take much to create a bomb that potentially hurts people.
That's why it's so important ... The bomb threat is there.
Will not go away.
It's big, ”Parpachate recalled.
