FBI HUNTING 12 STRONG TERRORIST 'SLEEPER CELL'linked to brothers Tamerlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

UK Daily Mirror ^ | 4/22/13 00:01

[drewh]

The FBI was last night hunting a 12-strong terrorist “sleeper cell” linked to the Boston marathon bomb brothers.

Police believe Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were specially trained to carry out the devastating attack.

More than 1,000 FBI operatives were last night working to track down the cell and arrested a man and two women 60 miles from Boston in the hours before Dzhokhar’s dramatic capture after a bloody shootout on Friday.

A source close to the investigation said: “We have no doubt the brothers were not acting alone. The devices used to detonate the two bombs were highly sophisticated and not the kind of thing people learn from Google.

“They were too advanced. Someone gave the brothers the skills and it is now our job to find out just who they were. Agents think the sleeper cell has up to a dozen members and has been waiting several years for their day to come.”

A specialist team of CIA and FBI interrogators was yesterday flown to a Boston hospital to grill wounded Dzhokhar, 19, about the secret group. The University of Massachusetts student was caught on Friday after hiding out in a boat parked in a garden in locked down Watertown the day after a gun battle with police left his 26-year-old brother and a rookie cop dead.

Dzhokhar is said to have run his brother over as he escaped in a stolen car while Tamerlan lay handcuffed on the ground. They were carrying six bombs with them at the time, three of which ­exploded, as well as a handgun and rifle.

Last night Dzhokhar – badly wounded but alive – lay handcuffed to his hospital bed under armed guard. The other three arrested in the port of New Bedford are also believed to be of college age.

[justa-hairyape]

All politicians care about is tax revenue.

[justa-hairyape]

We do not know what their motives were. If my conspiracy holds, they were just trying to frame the Sauds who were trying to frame them. Killing was not the main objective at the Marathon. Otherwise they would have opened fire with all the guns and grenades they had.

[dontreadthis]

lawyers?

[Zhang Fei]

The bombs were placed at street level, where they caused mainly severe leg injuries, including numerous amputations. Had they been placed higher, those would have become head injuries and decapitations... in other words scores of deaths.

It was the placement of the bombs that made them less deadly. The triggers and hardware worked reliably, and did show expertise. I'm pretty sure the investigation will turn up that a pro either trained them or handed them the triggers ready made.

I'd think pro training would have incorporated the vehicle bomb, which is not some kind of technological breakthrough, having been used for a century including during the Wall Street bombing. Does anyone really think bombing a marathon made for bigger headlines than an Oklahoma City-style bombing would have? McVeigh attempted to minimize non-government casualties. If he had chosen a street with buildings on all sides, a thousand people might have died. A Islamist pro isn't going to be worried about these niceties.

[AdamBomb]

[Alberta's Child]

I picked up on that one right away. A Freeper who claimed to be an electrical engineer posted a message on an earlier thread indicating that these bombs were not only very simple, but also exposed the two mutants to some potential danger because of the possibility of an accidental detonation when using a remote-control car detonation device like what has been described for these bombs.

[southernnorthcarolina]

It's a pretty sorry situation when we have to get news -- or even educated speculation -- from a British tabloid, and a Labour-supporting one, at that.

They may well be right; I suspect they're closer to the truth than the Boston Mayor, and various Administration and (U.S.) media talking heads, who assert that the two perps were acting on their own, and that we must not read anything into their religion, which, as we all know, is a Religion of Peace.

The President warns us not to leap to conclusions, and that makes sense. Unfortunately, his own Administration, and his media sycophants, didn't follow this advice in the hours immediately following the bombings. David Axlerod, to cite one of many examples, quickly suggested, absent a shred of evidence, that the bombings could have been by tax protestors. The disappointment in some quarters that the perps were not Tea Party followers, and did not have NRA membership cards in their pockets, was palpable.

Meanwhile, our "opinion leaders" not only avoid jumping to conclusions; they make a conscious effort to avoid seeing the obvious. Anyone who so much as raises the possibility of a connection to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups risks being labeled as an Islamophobe. Such a label, to me, isn't pejorative; rather, it connotes an ability to connect the dots. There are none so blind as they who will not see.

[justa-hairyape]

The President warns us not to leap to conclusions, and that makes sense.

Incorrect. Nothing this President has ever said has made sense. Not logically. And certainly not morally.

[Redplum]

CNN also has several stories in print on their website that says the exact, 180 degree, opposite - that it is believed they acted alone and the FBI is not pursuing any additional leads.

According to the FedGov's propoganda mouthpiece, "The terror is over"...riiiiigghhtt...

[Zhang Fei]

I picked up on that one right away. A Freeper who claimed to be an electrical engineer posted a message on an earlier thread indicating that these bombs were not only very simple, but also exposed the two mutants to some potential danger because of the possibility of an accidental detonation when using a remote-control car detonation device like what has been described for these bombs.

From the FBI's standpoint, I think it sounds a lot better to say that they were unable to prevent these attacks because they were staged by professionals than to tell the truth, which is that they couldn't track these guys through the usual sigint and informant networks because they were just a couple of Islamist palookas screwing around.

It's the Katrina syndrome - the public blames Bush for Katrina's aftermath even though he did everything in his power. Some things are just out of your hands. I don't doubt the FBI did all it reasonably could. I suspect there are huge numbers of domestic Muslims (and non-Muslims who want to see what the enemy looks like) who view jihadist web sites. If you added every one of them up, you'd end up with tens of thousands of suspects, if not more. There's nowhere near enough manpower to cover all of them.

[Alberta's Child]

I agree with you, for the most part. The only added complication here that needs to be scrutinized is the FBI’s prior investigation of the older brother. I mean — maybe it’s me, but if I was called in to investigate a recent immigrant for radical Islamic ties on the basis of a request from a foreign government (and not just any government, but the Russian government), you can bet that guy would be on my radar screen constantly.

[Zhang Fei]

I agree with you, for the most part. The only added complication here that needs to be scrutinized is the FBI’s prior investigation of the older brother. I mean — maybe it’s me, but if I was called in to investigate a recent immigrant for radical Islamic ties on the basis of a request from a foreign government (and not just any government, but the Russian government), you can bet that guy would be on my radar screen constantly.

The Russian government, with its Soviet record of sending domestic political dissidents to gulags and its post-Soviet continuation of a record of assassinating dissidents-in-exile?

[Alberta's Child]

Good point. But this guy surely didn't meet the same level of interest you've described. If he was over here and his parents (or his father, at least) had traveled back to Russia for extended periods of time, then he's hardly someone who would warrant much interest or scrutiny from the Russian government as a "dissident" of some kind.

I'll tell what I think happened here: The U.S. government has been quietly supporting those Chechen separatists for years despite their violent history, so they probably didn't pay any mind to the Russians at all.

[Robert DeLong]

It's still available at Toys R Us

The guy that said lawyers may be on to something though From May 26, 2004 article from The Onion - Veterans of the '80s cult classic TV show You Can't Do That On Television filed a $1 billion class-action lawsuit against Nickelodeon Monday

[Zhang Fei]

We do not know what their motives were. If my conspiracy holds, they were just trying to frame the Sauds who were trying to frame them. Killing was not the main objective at the Marathon. Otherwise they would have opened fire with all the guns and grenades they had.

The al Sauds are not a monolith. While there are princelings who hope to ascend the throne by using third parties, including perhaps Islamist terrorists, I doubt the guy in charge really wants to rock the boat. There are probably plenty of wealthy non-royal Saudis harboring ambitions of their own, including perhaps parts of the bin Laden family. After all, in an oil-producing country where the government owns the oil, power is money.

As to what pros can do with limited resources, I'd point to the Bali bombing. 200 dead in a nightclub vs 3 dead at a road race. I think it's pretty clear that the nightclub bombing is far more frightening.

[justa-hairyape]

I think it's pretty clear that the nightclub bombing is far more frightening.

How in the world can that be clear at all ? You are comparing the terror experienced in one country and culture to another country ? Let me know when you shift is over.

[Boston Blackie]

Mumbles speaks Meninoese and that can’t be translated yet.

[Zhang Fei]

Good point. But this guy surely didn't meet the same level of interest you've described. If he was over here and his parents (or his father, at least) had traveled back to Russia for extended periods of time, then he's hardly someone who would warrant much interest or scrutiny from the Russian government as a "dissident" of some kind. I'll tell what I think happened here: The U.S. government has been quietly supporting those Chechen separatists for years despite their violent history, so they probably didn't pay any mind to the Russians at all.

I don't think there's any organized effort by Chechens to attack the US, not only because we're not their enemy, but because we're covertly their allies (although not friends). I think this was a couple of screw-ups doing what they do when they have a Travis Bickle moment. They claim to have been big shots back in Russia, They certainly weren't big shots stateside. This attack was their way of venting. Don't get me wrong - there are probably tens of thousands of Muslims or more who think the way these mooks did about Uncle Sam's relationship with Islam. The difference is that most of those Muslims shrug it off the way normal people shrug off the injustice of the day.

[Zhang Fei]

How in the world can that be clear at all ? You are comparing the terror experienced in one country and culture to another country ? Let me know when you shift is over.

I was pointing out that something similar to the Bali attack, with a 200 person body count, carried out here would be far more frightening than the Boston Marathon attack.

[fso301]

It was the placement of the bombs that made them less deadly. The triggers and hardware worked reliably, and did show expertise. I'm pretty sure the investigation will turn up that a pro either trained them or handed them the triggers ready made.

On the video and all images I've seen, they looked calm as if they had rehearsed the attack quite a bit or had carried out similar attack(s) in some other part of the world.