Again I don't know which specific event you're referring to, so I can't comment on the bomb's destructive power. A "car bomb with fertilizer" does sound very bulky and powerful though, similar bombs have been responsible for catastrophic explosions.
Sometimes it's not about the raw explosive force of the weapon but about it's capacity to inflict damage in the given scenario. For instance people have been charged with trying to use weapons of mass destruction after failing to detonate shoe bombs on a plane. The explosion itself would be no bigger than that of a grenade, but if you consider that it could down the entire plane with a few hundred people on board, possibly over an urban area... Similarly, if the car bomb was blown up in Time's Square at new years or some other kind of scenario where it had the potential to inflict many casualties, then it would create "mass destruction".
Other times law enforcement is just weird about definitions in an effort to "play it safe" and be strict. For example, Transport Canada says that planes can't perform certain manoeuvres over "open-air assemblies of people". To most people that would sound like a huge crowd, like a concert or a festival, but I know a guy who got pinned when the authorities claimed that seven people in a field constituted an open-air assembly of people. It's not about brainwashing or indoctrination, it's just about being strict, which I don't mind in the case of terrorism.
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