Boston bombings: Police in shoot out with gunmen outside Boston

[sorcerer]

Official: Suspect says Iraq, Afghanistan drove Boston bombings - CNN.com

(CNN) -- The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has cited the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as motivating factors behind last week's attack, a U.S. government official said Tuesday.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been able to communicate with investigators in a limited fashion from his hospital bed and told them that neither he nor his brother Tamerlan, now dead, had any contact with terrorist groups overseas. The official cautioned that the interviews were preliminary, however, and that Tsarnaev's account needs to be checked out.

The 19-year-old has told investigators the brothers were self-radicalized via the Internet. Investigators also are looking into whether the online English-language magazine Inspire, put out by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was used for instruction on how to make the bombs, but another source cautioned that other outlets could have provided that information.

The twin blasts just before the finish line of the April 15 race killed three people and wounded more than 260 and turned a chunk of downtown Boston into a crime scene, disrupting the normal routines of countless others.

 

[pmaitra]

Mother of Accused Bombers Faces Her Own Legal Woes

The mother of accused Boston Marathon bombers has continued to defend her two sons from her home in Dagestan, Russia, but if she attempts to return to the United States to bury her older son, or care for the boy that remains hospitalized, she could face arrest on an outstanding warrant for shoplifting.

The clerk of the Natick District Court confirmed to ABC News that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, failed to appear at a court hearing on October 25, 2012 to resolve charges that she stole $1,600 worth of garments from a nearby Lord & Taylor department store.

Source: Mother of Accused Bombers Faces Her Own Legal Troubles - ABC News

 

[pmaitra]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW8p_0oB0V4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okem41o_24U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqgUAz7B7do

 

[Ray]

I believe she has been convicted of shoplifting herself.

Criminal bent of mind in the genes!

 

[Ray]

I thought the question was regarding the entire Muslim community, and not one country.

No it is not about the complete Muslim community nor is it about a country.

It is about some extremist fundamentalist organisation who have infiltrated various countries befooling some elements of the community that the religion is in danger!

A totally false premise since none can wipe out a religious belief, no matter how much of violence or oppression occurs against that religion.

All religions have faced these phases of violence and suppression, but religions have not been wiped out, even the pacifist ones of the subcontinent, if you want examples!

It is those who do not have faith in the robustness of their Faith are the ones who fall prey to some vicious elements who misuse religion basically to garner money and power!

 

[pmaitra]

Screen shot of charges, FBI affidavit against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombings (Image from Welcome to the United States Department of Justice)

Source: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged with conspiring to use WMD, may face death penalty — RT USA

 

[pmaitra]

Wife of 'Boston bomber' was arrested for shoplifting from clothes store - years before his mother was hit with similar charges

Record: It has emerged that Katherine Russell, the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was arrested for shoplifting from a clothes store in Rhode Island when she was a teenager

• Katherine Russell arrested for shoplifting from Old Navy in 2007
• Her future mother-in-law 'stole $1,600 worth of clothes in 2011'
• Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was known to fly into fits of rage against his wife and throw things, including furniture. The couple has a daughter, 3
• He admitted to slapping a previous girlfriend - not Russell - in 2009

Katherine Russell, the widow of suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsraneav, has a criminal record and is a confessed shoplifter, MailOnline can reveal.

A police report obtained by MailOnline reveals that the 25-year-old Islamic convert was arrested in 2007 for stealing $67 worth of clothing from an Old Navy store in Warwick, Rhode Island.

And in an intriguing twist, Russell, who was 18 at the time, told officers she was married though she was living at parent's North Kingstown home and did not meet Tsranaev until some two years later.

The startling revelation of this tawdry incident raises fresh questions over the past and character of the 'all-American girl' 'brainwashed' according to some, by her fanatic husband.

Read more: Katherine Russell, wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was arrested for shoplifting | Mail Online

[HR][/HR]

Do birds of the same feather, flock together? Apparently so!

 

[Ray]

Too many such like minded cooks have spoilt the broth!

 

[pmaitra]

Boston marathon bombs: Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Svengali-like sway over his mother and wife

His mother worked in a spa and his wife was an all-American high school dancer – until they fell under the Svengali-like spell of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, left, and Katherine Russell, right, the mother and wife of Boston bombing accused Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Photo: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AND WILLIAM FARRINGTON/POLARIS/EYEVINE

Two of the women in Tsarnaev's life had been living very Western existences until the man who dominated them demanded they cover themselves up and become more devout.
[HR][/HR]
"Tamerlan said to me, 'You know mama, you are pushing me toward the truth, but I would like you to wear a hijab. A woman in Islam should be concealed.'"

After that, relatives from Russia, communicating by Skype, were shocked to see her wearing a veil. She stopped working at the spa and only took clients at home.
[HR][/HR]
Tamerlan was described by those who knew him as arrogant and domineering. In 2009 he was accused of slapping a girlfriend. The case was dismissed at a trial.

He went on to marry a different woman, Katherine Russell, who then converted to Islam. She had grown up a Christian in an idyllic New England setting with her parents Warren, 55, a doctor, and Judith, 56, a nurse.

Her high school yearbook showed her on the dance team. She met Tsarnaev though friends at a nightclub while at university in Boston and they began dating.

After they were married she converted to Islam, began wearing a hijab, and did not graduate. According to friends she became devout.
Asked why she had converted her lawyer Amato DeLuca said: "She believes in the tenets of Islam and of the Koran. She believes in God."
[HR][/HR]
He was disruptive at a local mosque, loudly objecting to Muslims celebrating Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

Source: Boston marathon bombs: Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Svengali-like sway over his mother and wife - Telegraph

 

[pmaitra]

Did Tamarlan Tsarnaev Kill His Jewish Friends?

On September 12, 2011, Brendan Mess, Raphael Teken, 37, and Erik Weissman, 31 were found stabbed to death in an apartment in nearby Waltham. The men had deep wounds to their necks, their bodies were strewn with thousands of dollars worth of marijuana, and police recovered $5,000 in cash at the scene. There was no sign of forced entry. Police said they believe the murders were "targeted and not a random act of violence."

Mess, who was Jewish, was a close friend of Tsarnaev. So friends thought it was especially strange when Tsarnaev did not show up at Mess's funeral.

Did Tamarlan Tsarnaev Kill His Jewish Friends? - The Daily Beast

 

[pmaitra]

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev-Junior's Auto Body: Boston suspect reportedly sold pot, ran a mysterious side business.

 

[Blackwater]

his wife life will be hell now on wards.

her role is also dubious .she shd inform police if she felt her husbands act suspiciously or suddenly started reading koran more

 

[pmaitra]

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva Hysterical
Bombing Suspects Mom America Took My Kids Away - YouTube

Familial break in the Tsarnaev Family
Boston Bombing Suspects' uncle tells of familial break - YouTube

 

[pmaitra]

Carjack victim recounts his harrowing night

Spoiler

The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming on the brakes. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11 p.m. last Thursday.

The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window -- and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun.

"Don't be stupid," he told Danny. He asked if he had followed the news about Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. Danny had, down to the release of the grainy suspect photos less than six hours earlier.

"I did that," said the man, who would later be identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge."

He ordered Danny to drive -- right on Fordham Road, right again on Commonwealth Avenue -- the beginning of an achingly slow odyssey last Thursday night and Friday morning in which Danny felt the possibility of death pressing on him like a vise.

In an exclusive interview with the Globe on Thursday, Danny -- the victim of the Tsarnaev brothers' much-discussed but previously little-understood carjacking -- filled in some of the last missing pieces in the timeline between the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier, just before 10:30 p.m. on April 18, and the Watertown shootout that ended just before 1 a.m. Danny asked that he be identified only by his American nickname.

The story of that night unfolds like a Tarantino movie, bursts of harrowing action laced with dark humor and dialogue absurd for its ordinariness, reminders of just how young the men in the car were. Girls, credit limits for students, the marvels of the Mercedes ML 350 and the iPhone 5, whether anyone still listens to CDs -- all were discussed by the two 26-year-olds and the 19-year-old driving around on a Thursday night.

Danny described 90 harrowing minutes, first with the younger brother following in a second car, then with both brothers in the Mercedes, where they openly discussed driving to New York, though Danny could not make out if they were planning another attack. Throughout the ordeal, he did as they asked while silently analyzing every threatened command, every overheard snatch of dialogue for clues about where and when they might kill him.

"Death is so close to me," Danny recalled thinking. His life had until that moment seemed ascendant, from a province in central China to graduate school at Northeastern University to a Kendall Square start-up.

"I don't want to die," he thought. "I have a lot of dreams that haven't come true yet."

After a zigzagging trek through Brighton, Watertown, and back to Cambridge, Danny would seize his chance for escape at the Shell Station on Memorial Drive, his break turning on two words -- "cash only" -- that had rarely seemed so welcome.

When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was forced to go inside the Shell Food Mart to pay, older brother Tamerlan put his gun in the door pocket to fiddle with a navigation device -- letting his guard down briefly after a night on the run. Danny then did what he had been rehearsing in his head. In a flash, he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, stepped through, slammed it behind, and sprinted off at an angle that would be a hard shot for any marksman.

"F---!" he heard Tamerlan say, feeling the rush of a near-miss grab at his back, but the man did not follow. Danny reached the haven of a Mobil station across the street, seeking cover in the supply room, shouting for the clerk to call 911.

His quick-thinking escape, authorities say, allowed police to swiftly track down the Mercedes, abating a possible attack by the brothers on New York City and precipitating a wild shootout in Watertown that would seriously wound one officer, kill Tamerlan, and leave a severely injured Dzhokhar hiding in the neighborhood. He was caught the following night, ending a harrowing week across Greater Boston.

Danny spoke softly but steadily in a 2 1/2 hour interview at his Cambridge apartment with a Globe reporter and a Northeastern criminology professor, James Alan Fox, who had counseled Danny after the former graduate student approached his engineering adviser at Northeastern.

Danny, who offered his account only on the condition that the Globe not reveal his Chinese name, said he does not want attention. But he suspects his full name may come out if and when he testifies against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

"I don't want to be a famous person talking on the TV," Danny said, kneading his hands, uncomfortable with the praise he has received from the few friends he has shared the story with, some of whom encouraged him to go public. "I don't feel like a hero. ... I was trying to save myself."

Danny, trained as an engineer, made scrupulous mental notes of street signs and passing details, even as he abided the older Tsarnaev's command not to study his face.

"Don't look at me!" Tamerlan shouted at one point. "Do you remember my face?"

"No, no, I don't remember anything," he said.

Tamerlan laughed. "It's like white guys, they look at black guys and think all black guys look the same," he said. "And maybe you think all white guys look the same."

"Exactly," Danny said, though he thought nothing of the sort. It was one of many moments in their mental chess match, Danny playing up his outsider status in America and playing down his wealth -- he claimed the car was older than it was, and he understated his lease payments -- in a desperate hope of extending his life.

Danny had come to the US in 2009 for a master's degree, graduated in January 2012, and returned to China to await a work visa. He came back two months ago, leasing a Mercedes and moving into a high-rise with two Chinese friends while diving into a startup. But he told Tamerlan he was still a student, and that he had been here barely a year. It seemed to help that Tamerlan had trouble understanding even Danny's pronunciation of the word "China."

"Oh, that's why your English is not very good," the brother replied, finally figuring it out. "OK, you're Chinese ... I'm a Muslim."

"Chinese are very friendly to Muslims!" Danny said. "We are so friendly to Muslims."

When the ordeal had started, Danny prayed it would be a quick robbery. Tamerlan demanded money, but Danny had just $45 in cash -- kept in the armrest -- and a wallet full of plastic. Evidently disappointed to get so little out of holding up a $50,000 car, he told Danny to drive. The old sedan followed.

"Relax," Tamerlan said, when Danny's nerves made it hard for him to stay in the lane. Danny, recalling the moment, said "my heart is pounding so fast."

They lapped Brighton and crossed the Charles River into Watertown, following Arsenal Street. Looking through Danny's wallet, Tamerlan asked for his ATM code -- a friend's birthdate.

Directed to a quiet neighborhood in East Watertown, Danny pulled up as told on an unfamiliar side street. The sedan stopped behind him. A man approached -- the skinnier, floppy-haired "Suspect No. 2" in the photos and videos released by investigators earlier that evening -- and Tamerlan got out, ordering Danny into the passenger seat, making it clear if he tried anything he would shoot him. For several minutes, the brothers transferred heavy objects from the smaller car into Danny's SUV. "Luggage," Danny thought.

With Tamerlan driving now, Danny in the passenger seat, and Dzhokhar behind Danny, they stopped in Watertown Center so Dzhokhar could withdraw money from the Bank of America ATM using Danny's card. Danny, shivering from fear but claiming to be cold, asked for his jacket. Guarded by just one brother, Danny wondered if this was his chance, but he saw around him only locked storefronts. A police car drove by, lights off.

Tamerlan agreed to retrieve Danny's jacket from the back seat. Danny unbuckled, put on the jacket, then tried to buckle the seatbelt behind him to make an escape easier.

"Don't do that," Tamerlan said, studying him. "Don't be stupid."

Danny thought about his burgeoning startup and about a girl he secretly liked in New York. "I think, 'Oh my god, I have no chance to meet you again,' " he recalled.

Dzhokhar was back now. "We both have guns," Tamerlan said, though Danny had not seen a second weapon.

He overheard them speak in a foreign language -- "Manhattan" the only intelligible word to him -- and then ask in English if Danny's car could be driven out of state. "What do you mean?" Danny said, confused. "Like New York," one of the brothers said.

They continued west on Route 20, in the direction of Waltham and Interstate 95, passing a police station. Danny tried to send telepathic messages to the officers inside, imagined dropping and rolling from the moving car.

Tamerlan asked him to turn on and demonstrate the radio. The older brother then quickly flipped through stations, seemingly avoiding the news. He asked if Danny had any CDs. No, he replied, he listens to music on his phone. The tank nearly empty, they stopped at a gas station, but the pumps were closed.

Doubling back, they returned to the Watertown neighborhood -- "Fairfield Street," Danny saw on the sign this time -- and grabbed a few more things from the parked car, but nothing from the trunk. They put on an instrumental CD that sounded to Danny like a call to prayer.

Suddenly, Danny's iPhone buzzed. A text from his roommate, wondering in Chinese where he was. Barking at Danny for instructions, Tamerlan used an English-to-Chinese app to text a clunky reply. "I am sick. I am sleeping in a friend's place tonight." In a moment, another text, then a call. No one answered. Seconds later, the phone rang again.

"If you say a single word in Chinese, I will kill you right now," Tamerlan said. Danny understood. His roommate's boyfriend was on the other end, speaking Mandarin. "I'm sleeping in my friend's home tonight," Danny replied in English. "I have to go."

"Good boy," Tamerlan said. "Good job."

The SUV headed for the lights of Soldiers Field Road, banking across River Street to the two open gas stations. Dzhokhar went to fill up using Danny's credit card, but quickly knocked on the window. "Cash only," he said, at least at that hour. Tamerlan peeled off $50.

Danny watched Dzhokhar head to the store, struggling to decide if this was his moment -- until he stopped thinking about it, and let reflexes kick in.

"I was thinking I must do two things: unfasten my seatbelt and open the door and jump out as quick as I can. If I didn't make it, he would kill me right out, he would kill me right away," Danny said. "I just did it. I did it very fast, using my left hand and right hand simultaneously to open the door, unfasten my seatbelt, jump out...and go."

The car faced west, upriver. Danny sprinted between the passenger side of the Mercedes and the pumps and darted into the street, not looking back, drawn to the lights of the Mobil.

"I didn't know if it was open or not," he said. "In that moment, I prayed."

The brothers took off. The clerk, after brief confusion, dialed 911 on a portable phone, bringing it to Danny in the storeroom. The dispatcher told him to take a deep breath. The officers, arriving in minutes, took his story -- with Danny noting that the car could be tracked by his iPhone and by a two-way Mercedes satellite system known as mbrace. The clerk gave him a bottled water.

After an hour or more talking to authorities -- as the shootout and manhunt erupted in Watertown -- police brought Danny out to East Watertown for a "drive-by lineup," studying faces of detained suspects in the street from the safety of a cruiser. He recognized none of them. He spent the night talking to local and state police and the FBI, appreciating the kindness of a state trooper who gave him a bagel and coffee. At 3 the next afternoon, they dropped Danny back in Cambridge.

"I think, Tamerlan is dead, I feel good, obviously safer. But the younger brother -- I don't know," Danny recalled thinking, wondering if Dzhokhar had discovered his address and would come looking for him. But the police knew the wallet and registration were still in the bullet-riddled Mercedes, and that a wounded Dzhokhar had likely not gotten very far. That night, they found him in a boat.

When news of the capture broke last Friday, Danny's roommate called out to him from in front of the living room television. Danny was on the phone at the time, talking to the girl in New York.

Source: Carjack victim recounts his harrowing night - Boston.com

 

[sorcerer]

Latest developments in the Boston bombing investigation

(CNN) -- Here are some of the latest developments in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation:

-- Investigators are searching a landfill in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for a laptop that belonged to Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

-- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been transferred from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to Federal Medical Center Devens, a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in north-central Massachusetts that holds detainees who need medical care, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade said Friday.

-- The parents of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects have left their home in Dagestan for another part of Russia, the suspects' mother Zubeidat Tsarnaev told CNN Friday. She said the suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, is delaying his trip to the United States indefinitely.

-- Anzor Tsarnaev, the father of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, had agreed to fly to the United States to cooperate in the investigation. He was to take off as early as Friday, but Thursday his wife called an ambulance for him. He was not on an early Friday flight leaving Makhachkala, Dagestan, which serves as the first leg of travel to the United States.


Previously reported:

-- "Members of the MIT community" are being asked -- at the request of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's campus police chief and the Middlesex County district attorney's office -- to provide authorities with information related to the night of April 18, MIT administrator Israel Ruiz said in a letter posted on the school's website. Authorities have said they believe MIT police officer Sean Collier was killed that night by the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.

-- The Middlesex County District Attorney's Office hopes to bring charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his alleged role in incidents last week in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, spokeswoman Stephanie Guyotte said Thursday. Authorities have said they suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his late brother, Tamerlan, killed Collier in Cambridge and later were involved in a chase -- during which they allegedly threw bombs out of their windows -- and shootout that ended in nearby Watertown. "We're still investigating," Guyotte said.

-- Russia raised concerns to U.S. authorities about Zubeidat Tsarnaev, the mother of the Boston Marathon bombings' suspects, in 2011 at the same time they asked the U.S. about her son Tamerlan, several sources told CNN.

-- Also, U.S. authorities added both the mother and son to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, database -- a collection of more than a half million names maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, an intelligence official said.

-- Tamerlan Tsarnaev's phone number was seen as indirectly linked to numbers that came up in two other investigations into terror suspects, according to a senator who attended classified briefings about the Boston attack investigation.

-- Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said investigators believe the Boston bombing suspects were planning another attack "likely in the Boston area." "The notion they decided to go to New York was a rushed event after this thing unraveled on them," Rogers said.

-- Thirty-four of the more than 260 people wounded in last week's explosions were still being treated Thursday evening in Boston-area hospitals, according to a CNN tally. Only one of them -- at Boston Medical Center -- is in critical condition. At least 14 people underwent amputations because of the blasts.

-- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shared a cell phone with a Russian-speaking student from Kazhakstan who was detained in the raid, something the law enforcement source said authorities had determined through cell phone records and their social media interaction. This other student was in a picture with Dzhokhar last year in New York's Time Square.

-- This student and another taken into custody in the raid continued to be detained Thursday. The young men, both foreign exchange students from Kazhakstan, are being held by federal authorities on alleged visa violations.

-- The two students, who haven't been identified by name, are not thought to be linked to last week's attack in Boston, sources stress. Yet investigators hope they can better piece together the suspected bombers' movements before and after the marathon.

-- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev revealed to investigators that he and his brother intended to drive to New York and "detonate additional explosives in Times Square," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. Bloomberg said the FBI told New York officials this information Wednesday night.

-- At least one of the two bombs used in Boston -- the second to explode -- was detonated by remote control, a law enforcement official told CNN on Thursday.

-- No firearm was found in the boat where the surviving Boston Marathon attack suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was found, several sources from different agencies familiar with the investigation said Thursday. Authorities had said in a criminal complaint there was a standoff between the boat's occupant and police involving gunfire.

-- A ranking Democrat on a House intelligence subcommittee said Thursday that he does not believe the FBI and the CIA failed to share relevant information with each other regarding Boston Marathon attack suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Case raises questions about post 9/11 intelligence reforms

-- The suspect's mother said Thursday in Dagestan that U.S. officials "already told us they will not let us see Dzhokhar." Zubeidat Tsarnaev earlier said that she believed the bombings were staged and fake. But she also said she feels sorry for the victims and is resolute in her belief that her sons were not involved. Zubeidat Tsarnaev is wanted on 2012 felony charges of shoplifting and property damage in Massachusetts, according to court officials. It is unclear whether returning to the United States would lead to her arrest.

-- Russian President Vladimir Putin urged closer cooperation with the United States on security issues in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. "This tragedy should motivate us to work closer together," Putin said during a live televised call-in session in Moscow on Thursday. "If we combine our efforts, we will not suffer blows like that."

-- The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev remains in the custody of the Massachusetts chief medical examiner, a spokesman for the medical examiner's office said. Terrel Harris also said the cause of death has yet to be determined.

-- Investigators are looking into the possibility Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- who was married with a young daughter, whom he frequently cared for while his wife worked as a home health aide -- may have helped finance the bomb plot through illegal drug sales, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

-- The name of one Boston Marathon bombing suspect was included in U.S. law enforcement and counterterrorism databases, but he was not on any watch list that would have prevented him from flying or required additional screening when he left or entered the country, intelligence and law enforcement officials said.

-- The suspects received welfare benefits as children, the state government says; Tamerlan received them for his family through last year.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/26/u...ings-latest-developments/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

[pmaitra]

Tsarnaev: What would Washington have done?

Spoiler

George Washington was ruthless.

As commander in chief of the Continental Army, Washington was prepared to crush those who attacked American liberty. He set up military commissions to swiftly hang enemies. He sparked an international incident when he ordered the execution of a random teenage prisoner. He even justified torture. But he reserved his ferocity for foreign enemy combatants.

Following the firestorm of last week's Boston bombing and the ensuing violent manhunt, we are trying to find our bearings. We need to aggressively extract information, identify additional threats and hunt down any accomplices, whether foreign or homegrown. Yet we must remain careful not to slide toward an Orwellian state – where Big Brother runs roughshod over local authorities, monitors Americans without probable cause, restrains the movements of innocent civilians or rains drone missiles on U.S. soil.

We can take a lesson from the actions of the Founding Fathers. Washington provides a model for how we can best defend against foreign threats while still guarding our liberties at home.

Consider his response to Benedict Arnold. Most everyone knows about Arnold and his treacherous attempt to sell West Point to the British in 1780. However, many people forget that he had two accomplices – a young British soldier, John Andre, and an American co-conspirator, Loyalist Joshua Hett Smith. Washington's differing treatment of these men reveals an important distinction between the rights of foreign nationals versus citizens.

Washington captured Andre first. He made short work of the young Brit: Andre was speedily brought before a military commission and hanged within days. Washington believed foreign enemy combatants had little to no rights, as he ferociously defended his people.

The same, however, was not true for American citizens, no matter how detested.

As the infamous plot unraveled, American forces were dispatched to arrest – rather than execute – Smith. He was indeed roughed up a bit: taken on a forced 18-mile march and denied sleep and food the day after he was captured. Washington, seething, even declared his intention to hang Smith "on yonder tree."

We can all empathize with this desire for vengeance. But Washington's prudence overcame his passion. As soon as it was clear that the plot was no longer active, Smith was quickly provided with the due process protections as set up by Congress.

Washington knew the immediate plot had gone cold the evening after he interrogated Smith, and by analogy, President Barack Obama's "public safety exception" was getting overextended. Washington's men treated Smith as an American and "advised "¦ to speak little, and cautiously, to any person who might ask [him] questions," the night after his interrogation. Federal agents did not provide analogous rights to suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev until a judge intervened almost three days after his capture.

Like it or not, Tsarnaev is a U.S. citizen. This may raise many questions about intelligence lapses and our immigration system, but according to the founders' understanding of our Constitution, that citizenship is a ticket to due process. The need to extract intelligence information from Tsarnaev is significant, and our military and intelligence agencies should be allowed to question him freely – just as Washington initially questioned Smith to ensure that the military danger had abated. But without Miranda warnings, whatever is said in those interviews should not be admissible at trial, because that would violate Tsarnaev's constitutional due process rights, which we are bound to uphold because he is a U.S. citizen. We want a conviction "‘ but we want it to be ironclad.

We all would like to see Tsarnaev brought to justice – possibly even hanged "on yonder tree" – but we need to follow proper legal procedures. By denying him the protections of the law, we set dangerous precedents that threaten all Americans' rights. We destroy the very liberties that Washington and the founders fought to protect.

Washington refused to allow emergency to erode Americans' liberties. "Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant," James Madison wrote, and Washington was no tyrant. He would not permit homegrown crises to undermine the ideals for which he fought.

We have conquered these problems before – fiercely defending ourselves without losing sight of our own liberties. We did so by following Washington's leadership. These precedents are still used by our Supreme Court in defining our Constitution today.

It is a good thing for the nation that Washington kept such meticulous notes.

Source: Tsarnaev: What would Washington have done? | The Great Debate

 

[pmaitra]

FBI reveal that they've identified Misha the mysterious 'bald, red-bearded Armenian American man' accused of radicalizing the Boston bombers

• FBI has revealed that they now know the identity of the mystery man known as Misha
• He is a recent Muslim convert who Tamerlan Tsarnaev was believed to have fallen under the influence of
• He is accused of having steered the 26-year-old elder Boston bomber to a radical strain of Islam
• 'Somehow, he just took his brain,' said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence
• Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, mother of the bomber's said it was 'nonsense' that Misha converted her son to terrorism

Bombing Attack: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon

Innocence: The Tsarnaev siblings as children. Dzhokhar, center, stands in front of his older brother Tamerlan as they are accompanied by their sisters

Troubled family: This black and white photo shows Tamerlan as a baby, with his father Anzor (left), mother Zubeidat and uncle Muhamad Suleimanov

Boss: Zubeydat Tsarnaev, mother of the terrorist suspect brothers Dzokhar and Tamerlan, is accused of letting a radical cleric preach to her boys in their family kitchen

Read more: FBI reveal that they've identified Misha the mysterious 'bald, red-bearded Armenian American man' accused of radicalizing the Boston bombers | Mail Online

 

[sayareakd]

they are getting hell of publicity..................... looks like good side of bring terrorist that they get free publicity

 

[pmaitra]

they are getting hell of publicity..................... looks like good side of bring terrorist that they get free publicity

You might find this interesting: http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/...errorists-us-attitude-shift-7.html#post722438

 

[sorcerer]

Boston bombing suspects planned Times Square blasts, Bloomberg says - CNN.com

(CNN) -- Days after allegedly causing death and devastation at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, two brothers "spontaneously" decided to head to a new place to unleash terror -- New York City -- that city's mayor said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings, told investigators that he and his brother decided to bomb Times Square as they talked the night of April 18 in a Mercedes SUV they'd just carjacked, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

The 19-year-old initially told investigators from a Boston hospital bed that he and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had talked about going to New York to "party." Then he offered a new account during a second round of questioning Sunday evening into Monday, during which Kelly said Dzhokhar was "a lot more lucid" than the first time he was interviewed.

The brothers had five pipe bombs and a "pressure-cooker bomb" -- the latter similar to the bombs used in the Boston blasts -- with them in the SUV that they could have used in New York, Kelly said.

Instead, their plan "fell apart" when the SUV ran low on fuel in the Boston area and the Tsarnaevs ordered the driver to pull into a gas station, Kelly said. The driver escaped during the refueling, he said, and police subsequently caught up with the Tsarnaevs -- first in a shootout after which 26-year-old Tamerlan died, then by capturing Dzhokhar on Friday.

"We don't know that we would have been able to stop the terrorists had they arrived here from Boston," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "We're just thankful that we didn't have to find out that answer."