FBI to blow up bus to simulate Bali attack to train investigators

Tuesday December 31, 2002

LOS ANGELES (AP) The FBI will blow up a bus on a desert Navy base next week to simulate the deadly Bali terrorist attack as a training exercise for investigators.

The students will be investigators of agencies such as police and fire departments who have already received other types of bomb training, Los Angeles FBI spokesman Matthew McLaughlin said Tuesday.

The bus will be blown up Jan. 7 at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Center in a course taught by special agent bomb technicians assigned to the FBI's counterterrorism division. The blast will create a simulated crime scene for the students.

The Large Vehicle Bomb Post Blast Investigators' School was created by the FBI and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1998 and is now sponsored by the FBI's forensic science and training unit in Quantico, Va.

The Oct. 12 terror bombing in Bali killed 192 people, mostly foreigners.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)