Fabrication of nonnuclear components for bombs, like high-explosive lenses, emits no radioactivity.
Mr Chertoff said the plotters had "planned to carry the components of the bombs disguised as beverages, electronic devices or other common objects".
The widened scope of the investigation came as both Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant organization financed and armed by Iran, stridently rejected Israeli accusations of responsibility for the plot, in which components of magnetized bombs resembling those used to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists were discovered in a rented Bangkok house on Tuesday.
"The widened scope of the investigation came as both Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant organization financed and armed by Iran, stridently rejected Israeli accusations of responsibility for the plot, in which components of magnetized bombs resembling those used to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists were discovered in a rented Bangkok house on Tuesday," Mr. Gladstone writes.
The purpose of such charges is to instantly separate the components of a bomb without causing the bomb's main charge to explode.
Mr. Barry described the components of a bomb that investigators "will be looking for".
This was, again, potentially damaging to the inquiry, because the components of the bomb could help to lead investigators toward its manufacturer.
WHEN in August last year Britain's security services uncovered an alleged plot to smuggle the liquid components of a bomb onto an aircraft at Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport almost ground to a halt as additional passenger checks were ordered.
"I had a cooker to buy," he said, meaning he had yet to purchase the central component of his bombs.
Pakistani manufacturers of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a component of homemade bombs used against American soldiers in Afghanistan, tentatively agreed to dye it for easier tracing, American officials said.
There has been no specific terror threat against the city involving chemicals, but the Police Department recently put more emphasis on screening shipments of chlorine after learning that it had become a favored component of homemade bombs in Iraq.
