Читать книгу A Just Defiance - Peter Harris - Страница 21

Building a bomb for a fixed object, such as a building or an installation, has its own peculiarities but is an easier device to put together. The challenge in such instances is about what sort of bomb is most appropriate and how the bomb will be attached to the target so that it will cause the most damage.

The bombs that exploded on 27 May 1987 in the headquarters of the Congress of South African Trade Unions in downtown Johannesburg did precisely that. Experts specifically constructed the bombs to the required strength and trained saboteurs cut through the bars on the back wall of the building, gained entrance to the parking basement, and placed the explosive charges around the main supporting pillars of the building and the lift shaft. They did it in the middle of the night when no one was around, so it didn’t matter what the bombs looked like. They weren’t designed to deceive, merely to destroy, which they did, rendering an entire eleven-story building permanently unusable. Very effective.

In the case of a living target, an individual, it is more difficult. One scenario is to place the bomb at a place frequented by the target. Hence at a home, a car, a place of work, a restaurant or a street. In circumstances where the individual has no known allegiance to a place or an object, the bomb must travel to the individual or they must travel to meet each other. A meeting of coincidence, so to speak.