Tonight, there appears to be a major development in the Boston Marathon bombing case. Several hours ago, someone shot and killed an MIT security guard. This set off a vast manhunt for the killers.
They apparently carjacked several vehicles including a State Police SUV, from which they threw explosives. That began a chase that has led to a massive shootout in the Boston suburb of Watertown between the suspects and police. I’m reading tweets based on the Boston police scanner which indicate that grenades and automatic weapons have been involved, along with explosions. There’s a major fight to the death going down.
A second police officer has apparently been wounded. There is also a report of a possible bomb in the roadway with the bomb squad responding. The police have established a very wide perimeter in the neighborhood. Officers have been ordered to power down their cell phones due to the possibility they might ignite explosives.
The police scanner now reports one suspect is in custody and being transported to Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital. Another suspect is “down on the ground” and not yet in custody. By this, I presume they mean the suspect has been wounded or killed and they’re leery of approaching in the event of a booby-trap (my speculation).
I should add that all of what I’m reporting comes from my Twitter feed, which means it’s interesting and suggestive, but not definitive. Further, the connection to the Marathon appears solid, but isn’t confirmed. Finally, a number of scanner related tweets have called the suspects “Middle Eastern.” This is again unconfirmed, but suggestive. Pictures of the suspects released by police earlier today confirm this visually. Though again, it’s not confirmed definitively.
More to come.
UPDATE: Twitter updates indicate that only one suspect is in custody as of 11:10PM Pacific. There is a massive manhunt for a second suspect.
‘BOSTON HERALD’: “MIT police officer killed, cops chase suspects in Watertown” – http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/mit_police_officer_killed_cops_chase_suspects_in_watertown
For what it is worth, according to the BBC,
“News agency Associated Press is reporting that the Boston bomb suspects are from a Russian region near Chechnya, and have lived in the US for at least one year. That information is as yet unconfirmed.”
and
“US network NBC News is now reporting that the two suspects are brothers – and has released their names, which have not yet been confirmed by police.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22213651
Oh that the number of innocents killed by US drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan received as much publicity as this. Heinous as this crime is, the numbers are a fraction of the death and destruction visited on innocents, including eight year old boys, in those countries.
I have blogged quite extensively on the issue and found information about the Chechen Tsarnaev family in an article @ RT.com. Father Anzor, an etnic Chechen lives in Dagestan and has warned the US not to murder his youngest son Dzhokhar. The older Tamerlan was an amateur boxer and spend time on radical Islamic websites. The uncle of the two brothers was interviewed and casually lied about their Chechen roots, telling the media they were from Kyrgystan. They did spend time in Dagestan until 1999, traveled to Kyrgystan and left in 2001 as refugee for the US. Mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was arrested in June 2012 for shoplifting in Natick, Mass. Seems to be loners and radicalized while living in Cambridge.
“The uncle of the two brothers was interviewed and casually lied about their Chechen roots”
I don’t know if the uncle “lied” about their Chechen roots, but the authorities of Kyrgyzstan have confirmed that they both have Kyrgyzstani passports.
Even if they are ethnic Chechens and were living in Chechenia, they would still be ‘Russian’* citizens but of Chechen ‘nationality’ (The Russian Federation has the same distinction between citizenship and nationality as the State of Israel). Does a Canadian of Italian origin lie if he claims to be a Canadian ?
* ‘ethnic Russian’ and ‘Russian citizens’ are two different words in Russian like Bosnian/Bosniak.
PS. I don’t see what the shoplifting of their mother to do with all this ? You think she stole the material to fabricate the bombs ?
Ever since the fall of 1999, when the second Chechen war began, the people of Chechnya have in effect been deprived of the right to travel outside Russia. Residing or studying abroad, taking business trips or performance tours, participating in international forums or art exhibits–these are opportunities open to Russians of all eighty-nine provinces, except Chechnya. Here it takes superhuman efforts to get a passport even when it is a matter of life or death.
Dagestan: Influx of refugees and consequences of Chechen separatist movement
After the family fled Chechnya, they lived in Dagestan. The need for travel documents is clear to get a visum for the U.S. and somehow obtain refugee status. The Tsarnaev family stayed for one year the most in Kyrgyzstan and left for the US in 2001.
Even an ethnic Kyrgyz from Uzbekistan whose husband is a Kyrgyz citizen, said she has been applying for citizenship for five years without success. She finally decided just to pay the bribe, but was priced out of that $1,000 option, twice the rate from the previous year. “It is big business for passport people.”
Immigrants should abide by the law, during my 10 years in the States a family was deported after their teenage son was caught shoplifting a minor item. I found that harsh, but guests should be held accountable and earn their keep.
If you’ve “blogged extensively on the issue”, you should read your own links more carefully: just as most other sources, the RT-link clearly states that the youngest was born in Kyrgyzstan (1993), and as Kyrgyzstan became independant in 1991, former USSR-citizens such as the parents (and the older brother) probably chose to become Kyrgyzstani citizens. Never mind, if I understand you correctly, you believe in collective punishment: because the mother was arrested for shoplifting, her two adult sons should have been deported with her. Apparently US authorities didn’t think so as Dzhokar Tsarnaev was granted US citizenship after his mother’s arrest….. on Sep 11 2012.
SO … after a Saudi national was tackled for suspiciously running away from a bomb blast, and two men speaking Arabic were removed from a Boston flight, do you think we’ll hear any apologies? Think anyone feels bad? … Anyone?
::crickets chirping::
There’s also the two Moroccans, Salah Eddine Barhoum, 17 years, and Yassin Zaimi, 24 years, who had their photos on the front page of the New York Post and other media. Barhoum, who’s a track star, said to media that he didn’t dare leaving his house.
But the suspects are still Muslims… wonder if the US might find an ‘Iranian link’ to bomb the country…..
Somebody would be low enough to use the massacre as a call to war – kind of like 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan – but are Americans smarter now than they were 12 years ago? Probably not.
The problem is not that with their ethnic extraction. The problem is with their religion. And, alas, not with their specific religion, but with most (I am chary of saying all) religions. And most certainly, the three primary pseudo-monotheistic clap-traps – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – are violent and blood-stained.
Religion should be beaten out of people, except as a harmless personal (not national or para-national) ethos.
M
From MoonOfAlabama
The Russians told the FBI about Tamerlan Tsaernaev radicalization in 2011.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/2011-request-for-information-on-tamerlan-tsarnaev-from-foreign-government
‘b’ makes some interesting points and raises obvious questions:
The Russians knew for years that the elder brother was radicalizing.
They told the FBI.
The FBI investigated him. It talked with the family and the person. (This confirms what the mother and the father said.)
Did the FBI try to “turn” or entrap him like it did with so many other nuts?
If not why not?
If they did turn him did he do their bidding or was he running as a double agent (compare David Headely)?