A Man Who Left Explosive Chemicals And Nails In Mason Jar Had A Mission: War On US Soil

A man who planted a Mason jar filled with explosive chemicals and nails at a western North Carolina airport last week vowed to “fight a war on U.S. soil,” according to court documents released Tuesday. The criminal complaint accuses Michael Christopher Estes of attempted malicious use of explosive materials and unlawful possession of explosives at an airport.

According to CBS News, the complaint, which was written by an FBI agent, said investigators found the improvised explosive device Friday morning at the Asheville airport near a terminal entrance. Asheville police bomb technicians then rendered it safe.

Person of interest identified & detained. Federal investigation ongoing. https://t.co/K7QjOrbH0G

— FBI Charlotte (@FBICharlotte) October 7, 2017

Court documents say that the authorities found the improvised explosive device around 7 a.m. Friday at Asheville Regional Airport. The IED contained ammonium nitrate and Sterno fuel, along with steel wool that was then wrapped around nails and a .410 gauge Winchester shotgun cartridge. An alarm clock was taped to the outside of the jar with and matches were attached to the arm that strikes the bells of the alarm clock. The alarm had been set for Friday at 6, according to the complaint.

Surveillance video showed Estes dressed in black pants, a jacket, and black hat approaching the terminal entrance shortly after 12:30 a.m. Friday and appearing to leave behind a bag, the FBI agent wrote. In nearby woods, investigators later found a backpack and a toolkit containing similar items to what was used in the explosive device: tape, Sterno fuel, and more shotgun shells. Investigators determined such items had been purchased at nearby stores earlier in the week, providing more surveillance video.

Estes was arrested Saturday, and the complaint says he admitted to leaving the explosive device at the airport. The complaint also states that Estes “claimed he was getting ready to ‘fight a war on U.S. soil,"” but didn’t elaborate on this alleged motive. He was being held at the Buncombe County jail without bond after a brief court hearing Tuesday. Jail records list him as a 46-year-old Native American.

The complaint said Estes waived his Miranda rights, answering questions and admitting to the building and planting of the device. “Estes described how he created the device … and then rigged the alarm clock to strike the matches and cause the flame necessary to trigger the device,” the complaint states. “More specifically, the alarm clock would go off, the matches would strike, the Sterno would heat up, and then the Ammonium Nitrate would explode.”

Estes claims he never actually set the device to go off, but the criminal complaint alleges that he had.

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Author: Mac Slavo
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Date: October 12th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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Stocks, USDJPY Stumble After North Korean "H-Bomb Test" Threat Reports

After an initial slide on Kim"s "deranged dotard" reaction to President Trump, both USDJPY and US equity futures are falling further after Yonhap reports, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho says the “highest level of hard-line” countermeasure could refer to hydrogen-bomb detonation in the Pacific.

Of course, if recent threats and tests are anything to gop by tyhis is the perfect time to BTFN(uclear)A(rmageddon)Dip!

North Korea ‘Begging For War,’ U.S. Ambassador Says After 6th Nuclear Test

The test of North Korea’s most powerful nuclear weapon ever and claims the nation has a hydrogen bomb mounted on a missile have inched the world closer to war.

“War is never something the Unites States wants — we don’t want it now,” Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday. “But our country’s patience is not unlimited. We will defend our allies and our territory.”

North Korea, Haley added, was “begging for war.”

North Korea set off a nuclear blast Sunday that was 16 times more powerful than previous tests, The New York Times reported. That explosion — far more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II – apparently caused a mountain at the test site to collapse.

It was the rogue country’s sixth nuclear test.

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The test came right after North Korea claimed it had a hydrogen bomb that can be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), The Guardian reported. An ICBM is theoretically capable of reaching the United States.

“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” U.S. Secretary of Defense and retired General James Mattis told reporters outside the White House. “But as I said, we have many options to do so.”

Mattis added, “We made clear that we have the ability to defend ourselves and our allies, South Korea and Japan, from any attack. And our commitment among the allies is ironclad: Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.”

Both Mattis and the United Nations Security Council called upon the North Koreans to denuclearize the peninsula.

Asked if he was making plans to attack North Korea, President Trump said Sunday, “We’ll see.”

The U.S. and its allies might not be able to shoot down North Korea’s missiles.

Nonproliferation expert Joshua Pollack wrote in The Guardian that he doubts the anti-missile systems in South Korea would work against an ICBM.

Additionally, the system designed to protect the U.S homeland from ICBMs — the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) — does not work as designed, according to a panel of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It is possible that defenses would only buy some time for the US military and its allies at the start of an immensely destructive war,” Pollack wrote.

Do you think the Trump administration should attack North Korea first? Share your thoughts in the section below:

Vault Containing $70 Billion In German Gold To Be Evacuated As Frankfurt Defuses Massive Bomb

Approximately 60,000 residents of Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt, will be ordered to evacuate their homes on Sunday as the city"s emergency service staff will attempt to defuse a massive World War Two bomb, discovered recently at a local building site. The 1.4-tonne HC 4000 bomb dropped by the British air force during World War Two was uncovered on a building site on Wismarer Strasse in Frankfurt’s leafy Westend where many wealthy bankers live.

“We have never defused a bomb of this size,” bomb disposal expert Rene Bennert told Reuters, adding that it had been damaged on impact when it was dropped between 1943 and 1945.

Bomb disposal experts who examined it said the massive evacuation could wait until the weekend. “We are still working on the modalities of the evacuation plan,” a spokeswoman for Frankfurt police said on Wednesday.

As a result, ahead of Sunday"s planned evacuation, more than 100 hospital patients, including premature infants and those in intensive care, were evacuated from two Frankfurt hospitals on Saturday, city councillor Markus Frank told Reuters television. 

Every year more than 2,000 tonnes of live bombs and munitions are still found in Germany, even under buildings. In July, a kindergarten was evacuated after teachers discovered an unexploded World War Two bomb on a shelf among some toys. During World War II, Germany was pummeled by 1.5 million tonnes of bombs from British and American warplanes that killed 600,000 people. German officials estimate 15% of the bombs failed to explode, some burrowing six meters (yards) deep.

And while local residents have been eager to comply with the unprecedented evacuation, the biggest since the war, Frankfurt fire and police chiefs said they would use force and incarceration if necessary to clear the area of residents, warning that an uncontrolled explosion of the bomb would be big enough to flatten a city block.

Frankfurt’s residents have to clear the area by 8 a.m. on Sunday and police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb.

Where this otherwise trivial evacuation takes on a more sinister, "Die Harder" spin, is when looking at what other structures are impacted by the 1.5 km evacuation radius: these include Frankfurt’s Goethe University, police headquarters, two hospitals, transport systems... oh and the Bundesbank headquarters, which as a reminder ten days ago completed the accelerated repatriation of 674 tonnes of gold - some three years ahead of schedule - from New York and Paris to its vault deep underground.

According to Reuters, the Bundesbank vault which stores 1,710 tonnes of gold deep underground - approximately half the country’s reserves - is located less than 600 meters from the location of the bomb. Well, that particular vault which now holds $70 billion in gold (including $28 billion in freshly repatriated physical) and everything around it, is about to be evacuated. All that"s missing are several dozen dump trucks to take advantage of the massive evacuation that will leave thousands of gold bars without security for 1.5 kilometers in any direction.

While airspace for 1.5 kilometers around the bomb site will be closed, we doubt that will prove a major hurdle to anyone eager to take a stab at a real-life reincarnation of the second Die Hard movie.

Still, to prevent anyone from getting any ideas of following in Simon Gruber"s footsteps, a spokesman for the German Bundesbank said, that "the usual security arrangements" would remain in place while experts worked to disarm the bomb.

The fate of half of Germany"s gold aside, bomb disposal experts said they will make use of a “Rocket Wrench” to try and unscrew the fuses attached to the HC 4,000 bomb. If that fails, a water jet will be used to cut the fuses away from the bomb, Bennert told Reuters. The most dangerous part of the exercise will be applying the wrench, Bennert said.

Roads and transport systems, including the underground, will be closed during the work and for at least two hours after the bomb is defused, to allow patients to be transported back to hospitals without traffic. It is not unusual for unexploded bombs from World War Two air raids to be found in German cities, but rarely are they so large and in such a sensitive position.

Meanwhile, Frankfurters can spend the day at shelters set up at the trade fair and the Jahrhunderthalle convention center. Most museums are offering residents free entry on Sunday, and a few of them will open their doors earlier in the morning than usual.

Discounting North Korea’s ICBM Capability

[image: Reuters/KCNA]Based on its ballistic missile tests so far, including its most recent ones last month, Russia believes the DPRK hasn’t yet achieved ICBM capability.

Noted ballistic missile/rocket expert Theodore Postol partly agrees, along with German rocket experts Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker.

In an analysis for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, they called Pyongyang’s Hwasong-14 ballistic missile, tested twice in July “a ‘sub-level’ ICBM that will not be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States.”

“Our analysis shows that the current variant of the Hwasong-14 may not even be capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead to Anchorage, Alaska, although such a possibility cannot be categorically ruled out.”

“But even if North Korea is now capable of fabricating a relatively light-weight, ‘miniaturized’ atomic bomb that can survive the extreme reentry environments of long-range rocket delivery, it will, with certainty, not be able to deliver such an atomic bomb to the lower 48 states of the United States with the rocket tested on July 3 and July 28.”

Postal, Schiller and Schmucker called the DPRK’s July tests “a carefully choreographed deception…to create a false impression that the Hwasong-14 is a near-ICBM that poses a nuclear threat to the continental US.”

While it’s unable to manufacture sophisticated rocket components so far, the skill and ingenuity of its scientists in using Soviet Russia-era rocket motor components “has grown very substantially,” they said.

The July tests carried reduced payloads – able to reach a much higher altitude than possible if carrying a nuclear warhead and protective heat shield.

Pyongyang achieved its objective, creating the false impression of being able to strike US territory – what it’s unable to do based on the authors’ analysis.

Yet technological progress it’s made indicates it’s heading toward eventually achieving what it can’t now accomplish.

The authors cautioned that no one outside North Korea has reliable information on the characteristics of its nuclear weapons designs – including whether miniaturization was achieved to permit their mounting on a ballistic missile, despite suggestions otherwise.

According to the authors, we’re “left to speculate (on Pyongyang’s nuclear expertise) based on intelligence information that we have from other sources and on an understanding of the very significant technical problems of design and implementation that must be solved to be able to build and deliver atomic bombs by ICBM.”

Based on available information, they estimate Pyongyang could only deliver a nuclear warhead as far as Anchorage, Alaska weighing 500 – 550 kg.

To reach Seattle, it could weigh no more than 300 kg. They believe “an advanced North Korean weaponized atomic bomb would be unlikely to weigh less than 500 to 600 kilograms.”

“So it is entirely possible that this variant of the Hwasong-14 (tested in July) will not be able to deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska,” they said.

If the Hwasong-14 upper stage was “fitted with the more capable vernier motors from the SS-N-6 submarine launched ballistic missile (known in Russia as the R-27), it could potentially deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, if the bomb weighed less than between 650 and 750 kg,” according to the authors.

“The same upgraded variant of the Hwasong-14 could only deliver an atomic bomb to Seattle if the bomb weighed less than between 400 and 450 kg,” they added.

Regardless of current or likely more advanced DPRK capability later on, the nation’s history shows it threatens no other nations.

Its nuclear and ballistic missile weapons are solely for defense – deterrents against feared US aggression.

The real menace lies in Washington, not Pyongyang.

New video shows U.S. dropping the MOAB on ISIS bunker facility in Afghanistan

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he mother of all bombs was dropped recently for the first time ever on the battlefield, causing immense damage to a vast Islamic State underground bunker/tunnel system, killing an estimated 37 militants.

The 21,600 lb. bomb is non-nuclear, as Intellihub previously reported.

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

Is The United States About To Bomb North Korea? The White House Says ‘The Clock Has Now Run Out’

I got chills when I saw a CNN report that said that a White House official has just warned that “the clock has now run out” on North Korea’s nuclear program and that “all options are on the table”.  That second phrase has been repeatedly used by members of the Trump administration in recent days, and everyone knows what it means.  When I wrote that a conflict with North Korea could be “Trump’s first war” last month, I was still hoping that cooler heads would prevail and that a military conflict could be avoided.  Unfortunately, it appears that a peaceful solution is not in the cards, and that means that the United States may soon start bombing North Korea.  And of course if that happens the North Koreans will strike back with whatever they can, and that includes nuclear weapons.

I don’t know if I have the words to effectively communicate how serious this situation could become.  We have gotten to the point where the White House is openly talking of going to war with a nuclear power…

A senior White House official issued a dire warning to reporters Tuesday on the state of North Korea’s nuclear program, declaring “the clock has now run out and all options are on the table.”

“The clock has now run out, and all options are on the table,” the official said, pointing to the failure of successive administration’s efforts to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear program.

Later this week, President Trump is going to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida.  The eyes of the entire world will be on this summit, because everyone knows that Trump is going to press the Chinese leader for help on resolving the crisis with North Korea.

But what can China actually do?

The Chinese could cut off trade with North Korea, and that would definitely hurt, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to have become convinced that long range nuclear missiles are the key to the survival of his regime, and so he will never give up his nuclear program.

And the Chinese will certainly not strike North Korea militarily, and so ultimately if something is going to be done to stop North Korea from getting long range nuclear missiles it will be up to the United States.

On Tuesday morning, North Korea once again showed their defiance by firing yet another test missile into the Sea of Japan…

The missile was fired from the Sinpo region at 10.40pm GMT (6.10am local time) on the communist nation’s east coast and landed into the sea off the Korean peninsula, South Korean military officials confirmed.

The rocket is believed to have flown around 37 miles before crashing into the sea. Specific details about the type of projectile were not immediately available.

Kim Jong Un conducted more missile tests in 2016 than his father did in nearly two decades.

It has become crystal clear that North Korea is not going to back down.

President Trump is still hoping that China will step up to the plate, but if the Chinese don’t he has already stated that the United States is fully prepared to “act alone”.  In fact, he made headlines all over the planet when he told the Financial Times the following: “Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what Trump is saying there.

Previous administrations have tried sanctions and negotiations for decades, and they all failed.

In the end, Trump is going to be faced with a choice whether to bomb North Korea or not, and four-star general Jack Keane says that bombing North Korea “may be the only option left”…

A four-star general with close ties to Donald Trump has warned that military strikes are ‘rapidly’ becoming the only solution to North Korea’s nuclear program.

Jack Keane, who declined the President’s offer to become Defense Secretary last year, said bombing Kim Jong-un’s nuclear facilities ‘may be the only option left.’

But bombing North Korea is not like bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria.

The North Koreans already have nuclear weapons, and the U.S. better destroy them all in an overwhelming initial assault, because Kim Jong Un will use any that survive to strike back.

If you doubt this, just consider what a very high level North Korean defector just told Lester Holt of NBC News…

A senior North Korean defector has told NBC News that the country’s “desperate” dictator is prepared to use nuclear weapons to strike the United States and its allies.

Thae Yong Ho is the most high profile North Korean defector in two decades, meaning he is able to give a rare insight into the secretive, authoritarian regime.

According to Thae, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is “desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and ICBM.” He was using an acronym for intercontinental ballistic missiles — a long range rocket that in theory would be capable of hitting the U.S.

North Korea is currently developing an intercontinental ballistic missile known as the “Taepodong 2” that will have a range of approximately 8000 kilometers.

In other words, it would be capable of striking cities in the western portion of the United States.

It is unthinkable that we would allow a tyrannical leader that is literally insane and that is obsessed with destroying the United States to have such a weapon.

But the moment that we start dropping bombs on North Korea we will start a war in which millions could die.  Whatever nuclear weapons are missed in the first assault will likely be fired at U.S. military bases in Japan or at South Korea’s capital city of Seoul.  Approximately 10 million people live in Seoul, so the death toll would be absolutely enormous.  And even if all North Korean nuclear devices are destroyed by the first attack, the North Koreans still have thousands of artillery guns and rocket launchers trained on Seoul, and they would not hesitate to use their vast stockpile of chemical warheads.

After the initial North Korean barrage, the fourth largest military on the entire planet would start pouring across the border in a massive invasion of South Korea.  The U.S. military would be forced to respond with large scale ground forces if South Korea would have any chance of surviving, and just like in the first Korean War the Chinese may decide to respond to that move by committing their own troops to the war on the side of North Korea.

This is a season of “wars and rumors of wars”, and most Americans have no idea how dangerously close we are to the beginning of World War III.  My hope is that a peaceful way out of this crisis can still be found, but at this point that is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine.

If Donald Trump decides to go to war with North Korea, he needs to hit them with an absolutely overwhelming first strike that takes out every single North Korean nuke, the bulk of North Korea’s artillery and rockets, and the entire North Korean leadership team within the first few minutes of the attack.

It is hard to imagine a scenario that does not involve nukes that would accomplish that.

And Donald Trump better get the public approval of South Korean and Japanese leadership before ever attempting such an attack, because they will likely pay the highest price if North Korea is able to strike back.

If South Korea or Japan balk at backing such an operation and then they get hit by North Korean nukes, the United States could lose them as friends and allies forever.

The stakes are incredibly high, and there are so many things that could go wrong.

So let us pray for peace, because the alternative is almost too horrible to imagine.

For the First Time Ever – US Drops Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb – On Afghanistan

(RT) The US military has used its GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed “the mother of all bombs,” for the first time in combat. The US Air Force used it in Afghanistan to target Islamic State tunnels and personnel.

The 21,000-pound (9,525 kg) bomb was dropped in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has confirmed the use of the MOAB, and is currently assessing damage. General John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on its use, CNN reported. Authority was also sought from General Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM).

The Air Force developed the MOAB in 2003, but it had never been used in combat until 7pm local time on Thursday.

The use of the bomb comes as the US involvement in Afghanistan heads into its 16th year in the fall, and days after a US Special Forces operator was killed in the same region.

“The soldier was mortally wounded late Saturday during an operation in Nangarhar Province,” US Navy Captain Bill Salvin tweeted.

The MOAB was designed to target large below-ground areas. It would have “feel like a nuclear weapon to anyone near the area,” Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona (ret.) told CNN.

The GPS-guided munition would have already been in country before it was dropped out of an MC-130 aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, military sources told CNN’s Barbara Starr.

CENTCOM after U.S. drops GBU-43 bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan: U.S. “will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed.” pic.twitter.com/qyrNXhpQbu

— ABC News (@ABC) April 13, 2017

“The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement, referring to Islamic State Khorasan, the branch of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

READ MORE:  It"s the Anniversary of the One School Shooting the Govt Won"t be Ramming Down Your Throat

Nicholson described the MOAB as “the right munition to reduce” the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), bunkers and tunnels IS is using to “thicken their defense.” The bomb will also “maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K,” he said.

The Air Force “took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties,” CENTCOM said.

A peace conference on Afghanistan is scheduled to begin on Friday in Moscow, involving the Afghan government and representatives of twelve other nations. The US was invited to the conference, but reportedly declined to participate.

US Drops Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb For The First Time In Afghanistan

Perhaps in preparation for upcoming events on the Korean Peninsula, CNN reports the US military has dropped an enormous bomb in Afghanistan, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission.

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed MOAB, was dropped at 7 p.m. local time Thursday, the sources said. The MOAB is also known as the "mother of all bombs." A MOAB is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition that is America"s most powerful non-nuclear bomb.

This is the first time a MOAB, which was developed during the Iraq War, has been used in the battlefield.

According to Barbara Starr, the bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command. They said the target was ISIS tunnels and personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province.

The military is currently assessing the damage. Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb, according to the sources.

We expect the Trump administration will promptly released a video of the bombing, which may serve a secondary purpose of hinting to North Korea"s Kim what may be coming. Until we wwait, here is a video of the bomb in action.