No controls on Semtex

last updated 8 January 2015

Prague

A Czech government plan to gain control over Semtex factories is failing, The Prague Post reported this week. In a plan approved a year ago, the Cabinet was to assume control over the production and sale of all Semtex—a favorite explosive of terrorists, because it is so destructive in small amounts and so difficult to detect. But Explosia, the company that produces the plastic explosive, said the government had yet to act, and that it would take at least another year for it to assume control. After the fall of communism, the Czechs stopped selling the explosive to rogue states such as Libya, but a black market has continued to thrive. Terrorism expert Harvey Kushner says groups like al Qaida can still easily procure Semtex. “Once the spigot is open,” he said, “it is hard to stop the flow.”