Boston bombing suspects showed few radical signs

WASHINGTON - The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings are ethnic Chechen brothers who spent much of their lives away from the breakaway Russian republic and showed few signs of radicalism in the United States, friends and relatives say.

Much is still unknown about Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Cambridge residents identified by a national security official as suspects in the twin bombings that killed three people and wounded 176 on Monday.




Tamerlan, 26, who dreamed of Olympic boxing glory, was killed in a shootout late on Thursday. Dzhokhar, 19, described as a low-profile student in high school, was the target of a massive manhunt on Friday.

The men's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, said he had not spoken with them since 2009 and urged Dzhokhar to turn himself in.

"He put a shame on our family. He put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity," Tsarni said outside his home in suburban Washington.

Asked what was behind the attack, Tsarni said: "I say what I think what's behind it - being losers. Not being able to settle themselves and thereby hating everyone who did."

Dzhokhar said on his page on VK, a Russian-language social media site, that he went to primary school in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a province in Russia's Caucasus region that borders Chechnya.

He graduated in 2011 from Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a public school near Harvard University in Cambridge. His "World view" is listed as "Islam" and his "personal priority" is "career and money."

He had enrolled at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a high school classmate, Eric Machado, told CNN that Dzhokhar had shown no "tell-tale signs of malicious behavior."

"We partied. We hung out. We were good high school friends," he said.

Machado recalled that Dzhokhar once said something in conversation about terrorism, but there was "no evidence that would lead any of us to believe that he would be capable of this."

Luke O'Neill, 21, a neighbor in Cambridge, said he had last seen the younger man this past winter. He said the family kept to themselves and he often would see Dzhokhar walking alone.

But although an unidentified former classmate described Dzhokhar to Boston television station WBZ as the "class clown," his VK page showed links to Islamic websites and others calling for Chechen independence.

Dagestan school

School officials in Dagestan said the family had left for the United States in March 2002 before after arriving the previous year from Kyrgyzstan as refugees.

"The children - there were four of them - were admitted to the School No. 1," the headmaster, Emirmagomed Davydov, told Reuters Television. "The whole family arrived together and left together."

US officials said the brothers were in the United States legally.

Tamerlan, the older brother, had been a part-time accounting student at Bunker Hill Community College. He was enrolled there for three semesters - fall 2006, spring 2007 and fall 2008.

"He wasn't even close" to getting a degree, said Patricia Brady, a spokeswoman for the college.

Tamerlan devoted himself to boxing. After winning a Golden Gloves bout in nearby Lowell, Massachusetts, in 2004, he told the local newspaper, "I like the USA ... America has a lot of jobs.

"That's something Russia doesn't have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to work."

But Tamerlan Tsarnaev expressed some frustration with the United States in a 2010 profile in "The Comment" magazine published by Boston University's School of Communications.

The article quotes Tsarnaev as saying that, although he had lived in the United States for five years, "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."

He neither smoked nor drank. He told the magazine, "God said no alcohol." (Additional reporting by Edith Honan, Peter Graff, Ben Berkowitz, Stephanie Simon, Michelle Conlin and Lisa Schwartz)

source: interaksyon.com

Boston Marathon bomb used pressure cooker, gunpowder, shrapnel

BOSTON - A pressure cooker stuffed with gunpowder and shrapnel caused at least one of the blasts at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured 176 others in the worst attack on US soil since September 11, 2001, law enforcement sources said on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama called the two bombings on the marathon finish line an "act of terror" and police said parts of the center of Boston could be closed for days as they investigated the blasts that caused several people to lose limbs.

"When these kids came in ... they were just so badly hurt, just covered with singed hair and in so much pain, it was just gut-wrenching," said David Mooney, the director of the trauma program at Boston Children's Hospital. "Pulling nails out of a little girl's flesh is just awful."

At least 10 people had limbs amputated as a result of their injuries, officials at hospitals said.

The youngest to die in the attacks was an 8-year-old boy. His family identified him in a statement as Martin Richard, who lived in the city's Dorchester neighborhood. Outside the family's home, sympathizers created a makeshift memorial of flowers and "Peace" was written in chalk on the sidewalk.

Officials identified a second person killed as Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford, Massachusetts. The third person killed in the attack has not yet been identified.

An early lead in the investigation and an apartment search ended with law enforcement sources saying that a Saudi Arabian student injured in the blast was likely to be cleared of suspicion. No one has been arrested, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told reporters on Tuesday morning.

Later on Tuesday in Washington, US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was no indication that the bomb blasts were part of a broader plot.

Pressure cooker bomb

At least one bomb, and possibly both, were built using pressure cookers as the superstructure, black powder or gunpowder as the explosive and ball bearings as additional shrapnel, according to current and former counter-terrorism officials briefed on the matter.

The sources, who asked not to be identified, said instructions on how to design such bombs are available on the Internet.

"Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror," Obama said in the White House briefing room. "What we don't yet know, however, is who carried out this attack or why, whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization - foreign or domestic - or was the act of a malevolent individual."

Dispelling earlier reports of as many as seven devices being found around Boston, Gene Marquez, assistant special agent in charge for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said authorities had determined that the only bombs deployed in the attack were the two that detonated shortly before 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) on Monday.

Any unexploded device might have provided a clearer picture of what materials were used and how the bomb was assembled, furnishing leads in the case.

Officials in cities across the United States were watchful and several had security scares on Tuesday, although no injuries were reported.

At Boston Logan International Airport, two passengers and their bags were removed from a United Airlines flight before departure on Tuesday morning, a source with direct knowledge of the action said.

In New York, the central terminal of La Guardia International Airport was briefly evacuated after authorities discovered a suspicious package at around 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) in the terminal, authorities said.

A nearly mile-long stretch of Boylston Street, near the marathon finish and Boston's two tallest buildings remained cordoned off on Tuesday and portions of that street could remain closed for several days, police said.

Davis, the police commissioner, called it "the most complex crime scene that we have dealt with in the history of our department."

Lower-body injuries

Trauma surgeons at several Boston hospitals said at press briefings that a number of victims had a range of metallic shrapnel material removed during surgery, including pellets and what appeared to be carpenter nails.

"The vast majority of the injuries were to lower extremities," said Dr. Tracey Dechert, a trauma surgeon at Boston Medical Center, which treated 23 people and performed amputations on five of them.

The inclusion of material such as nails in the device would be reminiscent of the 1996 bombing at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, which killed two people and injured about 150 others. Anti-abortion activist Eric Rudolph, who eluded capture for years, pleaded guilty to the attack and is currently serving consecutive life sentences.

Officials in Britain and Spain said the London and Madrid marathons would go ahead on Sunday, but security plans for both races were under review.

Runners who had traveled to Boston for the annual marathon, which has been held since 1897 and attracts an estimated half-million spectators and some 20,000 participants, remained in shock on Tuesday morning.

Pat Monroe-DuPrey, of Winter Haven, Florida, ran with his wife, Laura, in a trip to mark their 10th anniversary after being married during the race.

He said he did not know what to make of the blast, which came as he was finishing the race in a state of exhaustion.

"You don't have a brain at 26 miles," Monroe-DuPrey said. "They got us off the course, and then I was panicking." (Additional reporting by Tim McLaughlin and Stephaine Simon in Boston and Mark Hosenball and Mark Felsenthal in Washington)

source: interaksyon.com

FBI vows 'worldwide investigation' as Boston Marathon casualties rise to 176

BOSTON, Massachusetts - The number of casualties in a Monday's bombings at the Boston marathon has risen to 176, police said Tuesday, as the Federal Bureai of Investigation pledged a "worldwide investigation" to find the people responsible for the carnage. Three people were killed in the bombing.

"We have a number of 176 casualties that presented at area hospitals," Boston Police Chief Ed Davis told reporters, adding that 17 people were in critical condition.

Earlier, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick had placed the number of injured at more than 150.

The good news was that there are no known additional threats following the bombing, an FBI official said Tuesday.

FBI Special Agent Rick DesLauriers told reporters in the aftermath of Monday's attack that while investigators were fanning out across Boston, there was "no known imminent physical threat at any location" in the area.

Still, he stressed, the FBI was leaving no stone unturned. "It will be a worldwide investigation. We'll go to the ends of the earth to identify the subject or subjects who are responsible for this despicable crime and we will do everything we can to bring them to justice," DesLauriers said.

The agent also said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation was "not aware of any threat information prior to the marathon."

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, meanwhile, said only two bombs were used, and no other other unexploded devices had been found despite earlier reports to the contrary.

"It's important to clarify that two and only two explosive devices were found yesterday," Patrick said. "Other parcels -- all other parcels in the area of the blast have been examined. No unexploded bombs. No unexploded explosive devices (were) found."

He said over 150 people were injured, some of them gravely.

"Our thoughts go out to all of those injured and killed," he said.

source: interaksyon.com