Boston Bombings Could Have Been Prevented

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 24, 2013
All Rights Reserved.                                         

          While hindsight’s always 20/20, the Boston’s twin blasts, by Chechen immigrants’ 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, could have been prevented.  Whatever happened to the radicalize the boys, it’s beyond the scope of federal law enforcement or intelligence agencies to prevent all the influences converting impressionable young men into Islamic suicide bombers.  Whatever one says about the FBI, they didn’t follow up after a 2011 interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev to assess his terrorist threat after a six-month-long trip to the terrorist-filled Chechen region of the former Soviet Union.  Responding the Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) charge that the FBI “dropped the ball,” Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said he didn’t see problems with FBI Director Robert Mueller’s department.

             Trying to get to the bottom of the bombers’ motives, Dzhokhar admitted to FBI interrogators at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center that he and his brother Tamerlan waged jihad against the U.S. because of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Applying the “public safety” exception, the FBI coaxed the full-and-complete confession from Dzhokhar about the perpetrating the April 15 twin blasts, without affording the defendant his Miranda Rights, especially the right to have an attorney present or to remain silent.  Tsarnaev’s attorneys plan to challenge the admissibility of any-and-all information obtained without his Miranda Rights consent.  Showing improvements in his medical condition, the sophomore U-Mass undergraduate student insisted that he and his brother acted alone without help.  Authorities uncovered the stores Tamerlan used to buy the pressure cookers and gunpowder.

             Insisting the no one “dropped the ball,” Chambliss defended the indefensible, when in truth the FBI should have watched Tamerlan like a hawk, before, during and after his trip to Chechnya.  “There still seems to be serious problems with sharing information, including critical investigative information . . . not only among agencies but also within the same agency in one case,” said Intelligence Committee members Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).  Notified by the Russian Foreign Service in 2011 about Tamerlan’s radical ways, the FBI interrogated and released him in 2011.  Pointing to either a inexplicable disconnect or flat-out lie, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he department knew about Tamerlan’s Russian trip.  Sen. Graham said the FBI “told me they had no knowledge of him leaving or coming back,” raising red flags.

             FBI Director Robert Mueller has a lot of explaining to do to the 300 maimed victims of the April 15 attacks.  As part of Homeland Security, the FBI bears a heavy burden to protect U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks inside U.S. borders.  When they have actionable intelligence on foreigners or U.S. citizens, there’s no margin of error.  While it’s difficult to stop radicalization, it’s reasonable to expect intercepting terrorist before they occur with good intelligence.  When it came to Tamelan, the FBI needed to only follow-up on its earlier contacts to have prevented Boston’s twin blasts from taking place.  Somehow, he just took his brain,” recalled Tamerlan’s Uncle Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md.  Ruslan referred to a balding, red-haried and beared, Russian-Armenian named Misha who apparently recruited, brainwashed and converted Tamerlan to radical Islam.

             No one’s yet been able to verify or contact “Misha,” Tamerlan’s apparent contact to radical Islam.  Speaking anonymously, two intelligences officials familiar with Dzhokhar’s interrogation confirmed that the brothers read Islam extremist Web sites, including Yemen-based al-Qaeda’s Inspire Magazine.  Speaking to the press in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that U.S. intelligence officials knew about Tamerlan’s travels to Russia.  “We just had a young person who went to Russia, Chechnya, who blew people up in Boston.  So he didn’t stay where he went, but learned something where he went and he came back with a willingness to kill people,” Kerry said, confirming Tamerlan was radicalized before returning to the States.  No one knows yet whether the brothers were aided by anyone in the U.S. to pull off the April 15 twin-bombing terrorist attacks.

             According to family reports, Tamerlan met Misha sometine in 2008 or 2009, and shortly thereafter gave up music and boxing, adopting radical Islam.  Family members recall Tamerlan questioning Sept. 11, suggesting the U.S. orchestrated the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.  “You could always hear his younger brother and sisters say, ‘Tamerlan said this,’ and ‘Tamerlan said that,’ Dzhokhar loved him.  He would do whatever Tamerlan would say,” recalled Elmirza Khozhugov, ex-husband of Tamerlan’s sister.  If nothing else, family members confirm Russia’s 2011 warning to the FBI that Tamerlan was an Islamic extremist.  While Misha’s nowhere to be found, the FBI knew the extent of his ties to radical Islam when they finished his 2001 interview.  Allowing Tamerlan to go to Russia, return to the States and execute a terror attack goes well beyond reckless negligence.

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.