Boston Bombs Resemble Those in Mideast

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 17, 2013
All Rights Reserved.                                         

       FBI investigators worked frantically to determine who planted the bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon April 15.  As the casualty toll mounts, the FBI finds itself groping for answers   Showing how far right wing conspiracy nuts have gone over the deep end, 38-year-old radio talk show host Alex Jones raised the “false flag” theory where, like some believe about Sept. 11, the government orchestrated the attacks to justify tougher gun control legislation or a new Patriot Act.  Applying Occam’s “law of parsimony,” where a simple explanation is preferred over the esoteric, the FBI trotted out mangled aluminum or what’s left of a 1.5 gallon pressure cooker used by the bomb-maker to pack in the bb’s, ball bearings, screws, nails and washers used as the shrapnel to make the bombs so lethal.  “The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” said Richard DesLauriers, lead Boston FBI agent.

             DesLauriers wouldn’t dignify Jones’ suggestion that his department or some other stealth government agency orchestrated the attacks.  Yet equally preposterous is DesLauriers’ suggestion that the investigation remains “wide open.”  If the FBI were really so convinced about domestic terrorists or the lone-wolf theory, why would all government agencies, municipalities, counties and state agencies be on lockdown and heightened alert?  Even dingbat Inspector Clouseau would be pointing fingers at the more likely possibility of an al-Qaeda attack.  Given the mangled bomb debris and unexploded devices resemble the kinds of bombs used by the Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaeda.  Branding the attack an act of terrorism, President Barack Obama said he didn’t know “whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual.”

                  Presenting false dichotomies give the public the impression that the government hasn’t decided on the nature of the attack.  Yet if the government were really so nonchalant about the attack, 72-year-old Homeland Security Director James Clapper wouldn’t ratchet up the terror alert system, heightening screenings at all U.S. airports, train stations and ports.  Nothing would be worse publicity for the White House than admitting al-Qaeda breached U.S. intelligence and law enforcement to carry out the attacks.  Whether or not the bombs were planted by organized terrorists or lone wolfs, they’re all malevolent individuals.  Promising to “go to the ends of the earth to identify the subject or subjects who are responsible for the despicable crime,” DesLauriers insisted the FBI was working day-and-night to crack the case.  Disclosing the bomb-making material, the FBI leans toward foreign terrorists.

              FBI officials want the public to come forward with any and all pictures and video taking during the bombings.  Boston TV station WHDH reported receiving photos sent by a viewer of a bag next to a mailbox.  “We’re taking a look at hundreds of photos, and that one of them,” said FBI spokesman Jason Pack.  Piecing together the crime scene is no easy matter.  Emergency room surgeons working on the some 170-plus victims confirmed the presence of shrapnel found in the IED bombs and suicide vests used in Iraq and Afghanistan.  “We’ve removed BBs, and we’ve removed nails from kids.  One of the sickest things for me was just o see nails sticking out of the little girl’s body,” said Dr. David Mooney, director of the trauma center at Boston’s Children’s Hospital.  FBI officials confirmed that pressure cooker explosives were used in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, according to a 2010 report.

             When New York officials busted a Pakistan Taliban plot on Time Square May 1, 2010, a pressure cooker bomb was found in a Nissan Pathfinder.  Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch published a full description of how to build a pressure cooker bomb in the i2010 issue of its English language online publication “Inspire.”   In a chapter titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” al-Qaeda gave would be terrorists everything they need to know to build a homemade bomb.  Given the similarity of the unexploded bombs found in Boston, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude the twin Boston Marathon bombings were either performed or inspired by Mideat terrorists.  All other explanations of government-backed “lone wolfs” or disgruntled red necks make absolutely no sense.  Suggesting that the bombs were planted by the government in what’s known as “false flags” defies all logic.

               When anthrax letter-bombs hit Capitol Hill only a week after Sept. 11, it took years before the FBI fingered Maryland-based Fort Detrick biodefense worker Bruce Edwards Ivins as the likely suspect.  While there’s no guarantee the FBI will get the Boston Marathon bomber anytime soon, all clues point toward at least an al-Qaeda sympathizer or an actual terror cell.  Resembling closely the pressure cooker bombs found in the Middle East and Asian subcontinent, the perpetrator(s) tried his best to inflict maximum casualties on U.S. citizens.  Picking a “soft target” like the Boston Marathon with 27,000 runners and 170,000 spectators was precisely the venue terrorism experts predicted for the next attack on the U.S. homeland.  Whoever’s eventually fingered, Clapper’s Homeland Security Dept. has a lot of explaining to do about how this came out-of-the-blue.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.