Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Underwear bomb
Underwear bomb
An improvised explosive device built by sewing explosives inside the underwear fabrics. It is designed to evade airport metal detectors as it doesn't contain any metal components. The bomb is intended to be worn by a suicide passenger bomber who sets it off once on board by manually activating a sophisticated detonation system.
The CIA thwarted an al-Qaeda plot in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using an improved version of the underwear bomb around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. This incident has helped to reinforce the importance of full-body scanners, which have the ability to detect non-metallic explosives.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Law enforcement
- Category: Terrorism
- Company:
- Product:
- Acronym-Abbreviation:
Other Languages:
Member comments
Terms in the News
Featured Terms
Day of Esperanto
Esperanto Day is celebrated internationally on December 15, commemorating the birthday of L. L. Zamenhof (1859-1917), the initiator of Esperanto, so ...
Contributor
Featured blossaries
Browers Terms By Category
- Fuel cell(402)
- Capacitors(290)
- Motors(278)
- Generators(192)
- Circuit breakers(147)
- Power supplies(77)
Electrical equipment(1403) Terms
- Journalism(537)
- Newspaper(79)
- Investigative journalism(44)
News service(660) Terms
- Air conditioners(327)
- Water heaters(114)
- Washing machines & dryers(69)
- Vacuum cleaners(64)
- Coffee makers(41)
- Cooking appliances(5)
Household appliances(624) Terms
- Digital Signal Processors (DSP)(1099)
- Test equipment(1007)
- Semiconductor quality(321)
- Silicon wafer(101)
- Components, parts & accessories(10)
- Process equipment(6)