7:01 am.
Reports are that one suspect, the man who wore the back ball cap in the photos, is dead after shootout with police in Watertown, Mass. The other man, who wore the white hat, has been identified by the Associated Press as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19 year old, of Cambridge, Mass. This individual is still at large. AP claims he is from the Chechnya region in Russia and have been in the US for at least a year. Other reports simply state they came from the Balkans, generally. The suspects allegedly threw bombs at police during a car chase while they fled in a stolen car from Cambridge to Watertown.
CBS reporting that the two male suspects are brothers. Currently police are searching a wide area in Watertown for the missing suspect per CBS.
MIT police officer killed in Cambridge. MBTA officer shot in Watertown and is in critical condition.
Update [2013-4-19 7:16:45 by Steven D]: ABC reporting bombing suspects used grenades against police. Boston area schools closed today as are many local universities including MIT, Boston University, Emerson, etc. Watertown residents advised to remain sheltered in their homes.
Update [2013-4-19 7:28:35 by Steven D]: CBS reports that State Department records identified individuals, who were in the US legally allegedly. CBS reporting (per Justice Dept. source) that FBI waited to release pictures, but ultimately decided to release the pictures publicly yesterday in order to “force their hand.”
Be advised to take all this information with a grain of salt in view of much of the misinformation that has been reported over the last few days.
Update [2013-4-19 7:56:48 by Steven D]: Press conference “imminent” per CBS. May want to get to your TV.
CBS reports that older brother ( the one reported dead) is Tamerian or Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 years old.
Presser started. Boston residents now advised to stay in homes. That’s all they said that was new. Other cities and towns on “lock down” includes Watertown, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, and Allston-Brighton. Watertown is focus of search for surviving suspect.
Update [2013-4-19 8:16:11 by Steven D]: Friend of brothers interviewed by CBS. Said brothers have been here longer than 1 year, and that he went to high school with younger one as recently as 2011. Said he thought they were “normal” guys and he was shocked to hear they were involved. Older brother was allegedly a boxer and younger one a wrestler.
Update [2013-4-19 8:19:40 by Steven D]: See Oui’s comment and link to report that contradicts that the brothers came from region near Chechnya.
Update [2013-4-19 8:31:52 by Steven D]: Here is link to Oui’s diary which includes information that younger brother attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School on scholarship.
RT News (h/t Oui) says the brothers immigrated to US two years ago. Alleged uncle of suspects interviewed by CBS Boston says younger nephew first came to US in 2000-2001 which contradicts other reports. Says he is shocked. Says he doesn’t know older brother well. Last saw brothers in 2005 or 2009 (?). Uncle mentions they spoke to him about Islam at last meeting. A little vague. Seems distressed. Says older brother was “loser” and deserved to die. Says parents of suspects currently reside in Russia.
Update [2013-4-19 8:41:28 by Steven D]: Law enforcement (SWAT) has surrounded house in Waterdown, including an armored vehicle (from CBS Boston video).
NBC reporting (Pete Williams) that a third family member may be involved. Not sure who is his source for that statement other than generic “law enforcement.”
Update [2013-4-19 8:54:4 by Steven D]: CBS Boston reports that police evacuating neighborhood in Cambridge where brothers lived. Also the CBS Boston reporter said police took two people into custody, at least one who appeared to be a female.
Update [2013-4-19 9:12:29 by Steven D]: Mother Jones found You Tube video allegedly posted by Tamerlan Tsarnaev (the dead suspect) “extolling an extremist religious prophecy associated with Al Qaeda …” The prophecy is associated with end time apocalyptic beliefs:
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26 year-old brother of the second Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had a YouTube page where he posted religious videos, including a video of Feiz Mohammad, a fundamentalist Australian Muslim preacher who rails against the evils of Harry Potter. Among those videos is one dedicated to the prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan which is embraced by Islamic extremists—particularly Al Qaeda. The videos posted on what appears to be Tsarnaev’s YouTube page may shed light on the motivations for the attack on the Boston Marathon. The prophecy states that an invincible army will come from the region of “Khurasan,” a large portion of territory in central Asia.
“This is a major hadith (reported saying of the prophet Muhammad) that jihadis use, it is essentially an end-time prophecy,” says Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy “This is definitely important in Al Qaeda’s ideology.”
Update [2013-4-19 9:35:14 by Steven D]: I have some errands to run so please consider this an open thread. If you find relevant links or information please post them in the comments.
Update [2013-4-19 11:0:48 by BooMan]: Sister of suspects identified, talks to press through crack in door.
Oh, great … Chechens ….. a cross between Russian mafia and Muslim terrorist. Worse than Xtian militia, if possible.
Weren’t they the ones responsible for the Beslan school massacre a few years ago?
I believe so.
Chechnya (in central Asia) is a very long way from the Balkans, a region in south east Europe.
Very exotic terrorists for America. I’m sure we’ll hear their beef soon enough. How ever did this second brother escape the massive dragnet that had him in its grasp?
Not sure. Have to wait for press conference.
But the issues are very similar. Bosnians in the Balkans are like the Chechnyans. It’s the toxic stew of religion, ethnicity, culture and history. It’s the fact that Slobodon Milosevich launched the Balkan War in 1989 on the 600th anniversary of the destruction of Prince Lazar on the Field of Blackbirds.
Makes Ross MacDonald novels look shallow.
This news will truly mess-up President Obama’s schedule in the coming months. If this breaking news is true, the brothers are most likely affiliated with Al-Qaeda who were “destroyed” by the Russian army .. almost. Blow-back very similar I have talked about in the past year. These guys are trained terrorrists looking for the weakest link in the chain. In Syrian revolution, European nations and Australia are getting their bit of blow-back from nationals traveling and fighting with Al-Qaeda forces under banner of the Al-Nusra Front in Aleppo.
Cross-posted from my diary – AQ Terror: Boston Suspect Identified as Chechyan Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (19). He was on a scholarship studying in Cambridge.
And how did they get grenades? Is that just another aisle in US WeaponsMart? Available to all law abidin’ SWAT team wannabes?
Not sure. Again these are preliminary reports, not official statements, so not sure how accurate they are.
AP sources identify the surviving Boston bomber as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The man is said to be from Russia’s south, not far from the Chechen Republic. The man reportedly lived in Turkey before arriving legally in the US at least a year ago. The second suspect is said to be his brother Tamerlan, 26.
Cross-posted from my diary.
Thanks for all this info.
No motive is exactly screaming out from the VKontakte page, is it? A terrorist whose primary concerns are “career and money”? Terrorism don’t pay too well, Dzhokhar. Poor career choice, too. Jesus.
Grasping at straws, but might have something to do with Syria. There’s a youtube that he links to showing scenes of death and destruction in Syria, as well as teachings of Poslannik Allaha that Syria is the chosen land.
Consulting my Russian dictionary, Poclannik Allaha, means Messenger of Allah.
To clarify, the film is pretty standard, showing the misery of the Syrian people and praising their spirit and struggle. It’s a film that anybody might link to. I was just suggesting that it was evidence of concerns beyond career and money.
Additions to my comment in diary – Tamerlan Tsarnaev Posted Extremist Al-Qaeda Video
Thanks, interesting. So the Chechen refugee boys were appalled at the civilian death, destruction and mayhem in the “chosen land” as a result of the Syrian Civil War and wanted the safe Bostonian/Americans to get a taste of what Muslims in Syria are experiencing so that we would intervene and end the war in Syria? You’re askin’ kind of a lot, kids, and your methods aren’t too persuasive. Or they somehow blamed the US for the Syrian Civil War? For “ending” Libya but not Syria?
But I guess it sounds more plausible than rubbish about the “Black Banners of Khurasan” and Harry Potter being the cornerstone of world “evil”…
I don’t disagree. I wasn’t trying to persuade anybody of anything. There’s a mystery of motive, and I was making a hypothesis. I agree it’s sketchy and somewhat far-fetched. There’s a lot that nobody knows yet (and may never know) about these guys.
Thanks Oui. Added your diary link to updates.
I have only one thing to say about all of this.
Several people are dead, many more were injured. A criminal is loose, armed, dangerous and on the run. The entire city of Boston is in lockdown and the entire media system of the United States is in an absolute reporting frenzy.
Yesterday a fertilizer plant exploded in a Texas town. No one knows how many were killed in the explosion…well over 30 people have been found…and half of the town of 2600 has been destroyed or severely damaged from the blast.
Info about the plant immediately smells rotten on every level.
It was:
Further:
And:
I repeat:
It is also “not unusual” for bribes to be taken in exchange for leniency. Please.
If the Boston reports are at all reliable, it looks like these two brothers were involved in some sort of Chechen…read Muslim and anti-American…scene. If the U.S. was not doing its economic imperialist best to continue the subjugation of most of the Muslim world to the NATO powers in blood for oil wars, these two would have been off bombing somebody else. And if those blood for oil wars had not been fought, would the U.S. not by now be better off financially than it is? Would it not have found ways to produce energy that do not depend of foreign oil? Would the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been spent on foreign adventures not have been spent on the rapidly failing infrastructure of this country? Would inspection agencies like OHSA (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and the SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission…you know…the bank patsies that let the housing and loan bubble absolutely cripple the economy of this country.) not be “chronically understaffed?” (“Chronically understaffed.” Translation…”Kept totally incompetent and powerless on every level so that the corporate criminals who are running things here can become obscenely rich.”)
Boston is presently in total lockdown because two criminals did something unthinkable to a number of innocent people. Why is the U.S. not in some form of “total lockdown” due to the absolutely massive criminality that has been in operation here over the past 50+ years? How many troops have died in our blood for oil wars? How many Americans have had their lives totally ruined as the whole infrastructure of the country…the physical, social, political and financial infrastructures, just for starters…has imploded due to the criminality of a few?
And the Great Media Game continues. Breathless days and hours covering the criminality of two people while almost no mention of the less sensational but much, much more dangerous criminality of the 1%.
As a friend said to me this morning when I told her about the Boston lockdown, “Shame on them!!!” Shame on them for reacting to one criminal’s actions…no matter how horrendous and no matter how sensationally covered by the media…by cowering behind their doors, afraid to answer a knock unless it’s a policeman.
Shame on them?
Shame on us!!!
It is the citizens of the United States who have allowed this to happen. Fat and happy in our little homes with our little TV sets and little computers, sucking up the media bullshit and stuffing ourselves with bad food.
Shame on us!!!
Paul Revere made his ride shouting “The British are coming! The British are coming!” I am here to tell you the not only are the One Percent “coming,” they have fucking won!!!
Wake the fuck up.
We need some sort of revolutionary change here. Preferably a peaceful one.
Step away from the media with your brains in the air.
Compared to the One Percent, these two Chechens are small potatoes. Nothing. A mosquito bite. They ain’t shit.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
Hi Arthur.
I disagree the bombers are “small potatoes,” but I do agree we have more to fear from corporate malfeasance, greed, rapacity and the corruption of our government due to corporate influence and graft.
Boston, MA + West, TX. On the “terror” scale, which is worse?
AG
One question that our bedwetting media is not asking is whether there were specific people targeted in the group of people attacked–either Russian nationals or Kyrgyz nationals for that matter, or persons who they competed against locally in the Boston area.
The interesting thing to consider is that these guys were probably affluent enough to escape profiling. And young enough for the actions to fit the profile of some of the mass shooters.
The most effective thing the US could do to prevent these sorts of incidents is to ratchet down the Islamophobia, which the media is ratcheting up every day. That puts less pressure on young men to prove their manhood through “defending their people”. Of course, then there would be nothing to distract from the economic pressure that our incompetent elites want to push to the boiling point.
And yes, AG, the management chain of the West TX fertilizer plant should be charged with manslaughter. There is precedent in this country for doing that.
Yeah. Right.
Maybe they will be charged.
Maybe they will be convicted.
Maybe they will be punished.
And maybe they will be jailed or fined. (More likely the latter.)
But they are “small potatoes” as well. Compared with the real movers and shakers? The real users? The real criminals? The mega-criminals on whose hands lies the blood of millions? The Bushes, the Kissingers, the Cheneys? The financial criminals who bought this country in a hostile takeover and then sold it down its own river?
Where are the charges for those people?
In your dreams, that’s where.
In your dreams.
Who ya gonna call? James Bond? Gonna 007 their asses?
Ain’t happening, Tarheel.
Not without some sort of revolutionary change it ain’t.
Bet on it.
AG
Well, you’re kinda moving the goalposts there, AG.
And there’s very little likelihood that these small potato plutocrats with their ammonia bomb plant are going to get charged with crimes by the useless pro-plutocrat Tex-ass officials. Hell, we idiots will be the ones picking up the tab via federal “disaster” funds.
The federal regulatory agencies you cite have been rendered toothless for lack of funding for over a decade now. After the sequester they’ll be essentially non-existent.
But we’ll see if this appalling story of reckless corporate manslaughter and gross negligence gets any serious national coverage after the Boston shoot ’em up is over. I’d guess you are absolutely correct—no meaningful coverage for US corporate terrorism, ever. Not the American Way.
“Not the American Way.”
Yup.
But that American way has to change if we are to survive in this brave new world of WMDs, terror attacks and media mind control. It has to change soon or we are as good as through. A dinosaur picked apart by rodents.
Watch.
AG
Yeah, what about George Washington? What about Abe Lincoln? And TR? What about him?
Think about it.
Bet on it.
What?
Make some sense.
What about “what about them?”
Were they war criminals?
I dunno. I wasn’t there and I did not witness those particular hustles.
Further…I do not believe the historians.
“History” is largely about proving that one or another historian’s theories are correct.
I have witnessed the last 50+ years of American history, and I myself have come to some conclusions.
Deal wid it.
AG
Local Congressman commenting on MSNBC that Putin will be watching this carefully as he has the upcoming Olympics on his hometurf. And that, is a chilling comment.
The Olympics will be the first one where all participants and spectators will be totally naked, and will only be allowed in after a full-body scan to make sure that nothing explosive is stuffed up the poop shute.
The Caucasus, not the Balkans.