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US experts unable to detect C-4 component from blast site


Investigators from the United States have been unable detect traces of the main component of C-4 military grade plastic explosive from the site of last Friday's blast at the Glorietta 2 shopping mall, Makati City. Director Gen. Avelino Razon Jr, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), confirmed the information during a press conference Monday. He said the swabbing done by US Federal Bureau of Investigation and American demolitions experts yielded negative results for RDX, a key component for C-4. A chemist informed President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo last Saturday that traces of RDX were found after Philippine authorities conducted their own swabbing of the blast site. "We can assume those are military ordnance components. We presume those explosives could be of that origin," the PNP chemist, whose name was not disclosed, earlier said. However, Razon said the test results could have varied because Philippine and American authorities swabbed different areas. "The [US] tests are negative because when the US experts arrived at the blast site, they swabbed the exterior portions or the portions that were not directly at the center, or at the seat, of the explosion. That's why it tested negative," Razon said in Filipino. Razon added that, "But when the PNP Crime Laboratory personnel conducted their swabs, it was in the general vicinity of the seat of the explosion." "That is the explanation why the swabbing of US experts showed negative results for RDX," he said. Police Director Geary Barias, chief of the Metro Manila police, said PNP bomb experts, with the help of metallurgical forensics and petrochemical experts, are studying the traces of RDX initially recovered from the seat of explosion. Barias said that up to this point, no bomb components – including timing devices, power sources, initiators, switches, and containers – have been recovered from the rubble of the explosion. Aside from US FBI agents, a group of anti-terrorism experts from the Australia Federal Police have visited the Makati blast site to help in the investigation, providing technical skills in forensic science investigations. In a related development, Chief Superintendent Luizo Ticman, head of the Southern Police District (SPD), said two investigating units of the PNP are set to stop collecting evidence from the Glorietta blast site. Ticman said Scene Of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) and personnel from the Explosives and Ordnance Division (EOD) are expected to end gathering evidence within the day. According to RDX @ 3Dchem.com, RDX was "widely used during World War II, often in explosive mixtures with TNT such as Torpex." It said RDX was also used in one of the first plastic explosives, and "is believed to have been used in many bomb plots including terrorist plots." - GMANews.TV

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