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Article: Ammonium Nitrate Explosives Are Simple, Easily Made, Widely Used in Industry
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- April 21, 1995
- Author:
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Explosives made of ammonium nitrate, a common form of nitrogen
fertilizer, are widely used in industry and have largely replaced
dynamite in the blasting of rock for mines and roadcuts, according to
Jimmie Oxley, a specialist in the material at the New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.
"It's a very simple explosive to make," she said. "In fact, for
years the IRA {Irish Republican Army} made their bombs this way."
Federal investigators said yesterday the explosive used in the
Oklahoma City truck bomb was ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with
fuel oil.
That is the same kind of bomb as the one used in the 1993 bombing
of the World Trade Center in New York.
Ammonium nitrate ...