Is There More to the Boston Bombings than Meets the Eye?

I’m sure you all remember the tragic events of April 15th at the Boston Marathon. Three people died, and one hundred and seventy were injured. The initial police response has been praised for their speed in calming the situation, and the efficiency of the emergency health services to respond to the injured runners and spectators.

In terms of the aftershock in the States, it has reverberated across the nation. The country has not been targeted in such a fashion since 9/11, which suggestions imply that this act was trying to emulate; an organisation’s attempt to frighten the Americans to merely watch the country suffer, which has had several controversial campaigns in the Middle East since the notorious 9/11, and perhaps feel their interests are vindicated.

The reports that have followed the event are reminiscent of those that followed 9/11. Whether you believe 9/11 was induced by terrorists/government/aliens (or anyone else; feel free to let me know in the comments below), it has to be said it has been a slight embarrassment for the American Secret Services.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects implicated in the bombing, was shot dead last Friday in a police shoot out at his home, and his younger brother Dzhokar was captured and is currently being detained at an unknown location. Tamerlan was apparently on a list compiled by the U.S. Government highly classified database of potential terrorists called the TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment), but it was difficult to put markers on him, due to 1) he was 1 of 450,000 names, and 2) he was only ever a potential threat for a short period in 2011, following a tip off from a Russian source.

Critics claim that this is poor conduct, due to the suspect being a follower of radical Islamists, with possible links to Al Qaeda; but it has to be said, this is thought to describe many of the people named on this list, due to less than 5% of the list  being U.S. citizens or legal immigrants and more than a third believed to be Muslim.

However, there have been problems in information sharing before the bombing occurred. Republican Senator Susan Collins has been quoted saying,

This is troubling to me that this many years after the attacks on our country in 2001 that we still seem to have stovepipes that prevent information from being shared effectively.

(Source Reuters, 23/04/2013)

The man was not deemed an active threat, for he was not on the “No-fly” list, or the “Selectee” list (where extra security is required before travelling outside of the country), and this was due to a claim from an unidentified Russian source in late 2011, not followed up by any departments. Despite a red flagging when Tamerlan boarded a flight to Russia in January 2012 via the Customs and Border Protection bureau’s list, the lack of evidence of poor intent led to no action, again, being taken.

Indeed, he was removed from the TIDE list the following July, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano disclosed some details of why this was so at a separate, open hearing on immigration on Capitol Hill,

Yes, the system pinged when he was leaving the United States. By the time he returned, all investigations – the matter had been closed.

The secrecy around the case is as baffling as the information that has been released. It is reminiscent of terrorist reports from 9/11 due to the lack of detail compared to the rhetoric, and the underlying agenda that is difficult to quantify.  Indeed, why do we need to know that the bombs were ‘potentially made of fireworks’? (See here) Why do government agencies, other than the individuals quoted here, declined to publicly discuss how the watch list system handled Tsarnaev?