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FBI Hunts Terror 'Sleeper Cell' Linked to Tsarnaev Brothers

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The Prof

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The FBI is hunting a 12-man terrorist "sleeper cell" linked to the brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings.

The Bureau believes that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received training in bomb-making before they carried out the attack, which killed three people.

It emerged that a man and two women were arrested 60 miles from Boston in the port of New Bedford in the hours before Dzhokhar's capture. The three are believed to be of college age.

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."

More than 1,000 FBI agents have been assigned to track down the cell. A specialist team of CIA and FBI interrogators is on hand at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, waiting to question Dzhokhar.

The FBI has admitted interviewing Tamerlan two years ago, at the request of the Russian government, but said it wound up its inquiries after interviews with Tamerlan and other family members "did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign".

The FBI now says the pair were part of a terrorist cell, though they were not under surveillance at the time of the bombings, US Government officials said.

The brothers were carrying six bombs, a handgun and a rifle at the time of the shoot-out in which Tamerlan was killed. Three devices - thought to be pipe bombs - were detonated.

Investigators are working to establish whether the brothers had help in making the bombs, which were contained in pressure cookers and packed with nails and ball bearings.
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Boston Marathon Bombings: FBI Hunts Terror 'Sleeper Cell' Linked to Tsarnaev Brothers - IBTimes UK

our worst nitemare

the fbi originally denied contacting the bomber

dzhokhar was shot thru the throat, perhaps self inflicted

the three arrested in new bedford were two young men and a woman from kazakhstan

the plates on her bmw read terrorista

the brothers tsarnaev were here as refugees, granted political asylum

the younger became an american citizen on, of all dates, 9-11-2009

obama urges deliberation

Obama Warns "Not To Rush To Judgement" About "Motivations" And "Groups" | RealClearPolitics

on the other side, the locals play political polyanna

Boston mayor says brothers acted alone - POLITICO.com

pray for the victims and the loved ones
 
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The Prof said:
Boston Marathon Bombings: FBI Hunts Terror 'Sleeper Cell' Linked to Tsarnaev Brothers - IBTimes UK

our worst nitemare

the fbi originally denied contacting the bomber

dzhokhar was shot thru the throat, perhaps self inflicted

the three arrested in new bedford were two young men and a woman from kazakhstan

the plates on her bmw read terrorista

obama urges deliberation

Obama Warns "Not To Rush To Judgement" About "Motivations" And "Groups" | RealClearPolitics

on the other side, the locals play political polyanna

Boston mayor says brothers acted alone - POLITICO.com

pray for the victims and the loved ones
Click to expand...

I think its a bit premature to be particularly outraged about what did or did not happen here and whether it could have realistically been prevented.

Give it a few weeks for more information to come out about who was really behind this (if other than what we now see) and what the motivates were. Just like reporting on the news before you have the facts leads one astray; so does jumping to conclusions about a small set of facts when there is so much that we do not know.

This issue could be far more (or less) complex than we currently think it is. Its hard to have an intelligent discussion now.
 
upsideguy said:
I think its a bit premature to be particularly outraged about what did or did not happen here and whether it could have realistically been prevented.

Give it a few weeks for more information to come out about who was really behind this (if other than what we now see) and what the motivates were. Just like reporting on the news before you have the facts leads one astray; so does jumping to conclusions about a small set of facts when there is so much that we do not know.

This issue could be far more (or less) complex than we currently think it is. Its hard to have an intelligent discussion now.
Click to expand...

I agree. It is way too soon to come to any conclusions, but it is human nature to want immediate answers especially due to the vast amounts of information from all sources that we instantly receive.
 
This is literally the exact opposite of everything that's reported elsewhere. Thus far, authorities have said that they believe the brothers were acting alone - not as part of a terrorist cell. Also, I think the three people who were taken into custody cited by the article were released. I think they were friends of the younger one who were taken in for questioning and found to be innocent of any potential involvement.

I think people need to calm down and wait for actual information. Thus far, much more of the media than I would think has been rather tempered in drawing conclusions about motives and "sleeper cells" and the extent Islam was involved in the attacks. That's a good thing.
 
upsideguy said:
I think its a bit premature to be particularly outraged about what did or did not happen here and whether it could have realistically been prevented.

Give it a few weeks for more information to come out about who was really behind this (if other than what we now see) and what the motivates were. Just like reporting on the news before you have the facts leads one astray; so does jumping to conclusions about a small set of facts when there is so much that we do not know.

This issue could be far more (or less) complex than we currently think it is. Its hard to have an intelligent discussion now.
Click to expand...

There is much that we do know. These Jihadists did not act alone and they had technical and "moral" support from many; far, far more than the seven mentioned as "known" suspected accomplices. When their pictures were finally circulated, almost 80 hours after the bombing, it took less than a day to "get them" using only 9,000 LEOs. Using the idea that "good muslims" had no idea that these radicals were in their midst is the falacy that must be faced, as their uncle interviewed surely had no doubts that they were up to no good. While the vast majority of "good muslims" do not participate directly in the terror campaign they do little (if anything) to report or stop it, yet express shock that they are later "discriminated" against in the aftermath. This, like any street gang activity, will never be stopped by waiting until mass casualties exist before any action is taken. The law makes it a very serious offense to aid and abet criminals (Jihadists or street gang members), yet is often not used out of "respect" for family and friends. Where did the funding for these "good brothers" efforts come from? International travel is not cheap and must have been paid for by someone.
 
The Prof said:
Boston Marathon Bombings: FBI Hunts Terror 'Sleeper Cell' Linked to Tsarnaev Brothers - IBTimes UK

our worst nitemare

the fbi originally denied contacting the bomber

dzhokhar was shot thru the throat, perhaps self inflicted

the three arrested in new bedford were two young men and a woman from kazakhstan

the plates on her bmw read terrorista

the brothers tsarnaev were here as refugees, granted political asylum

the younger became an american citizen on, of all dates, 9-11-2009

obama urges deliberation

Obama Warns "Not To Rush To Judgement" About "Motivations" And "Groups" | RealClearPolitics

on the other side, the locals play political polyanna

Boston mayor says brothers acted alone - POLITICO.com

pray for the victims and the loved ones
Click to expand...

Our worst nightmare is right.

Boston proved a training ground for what not to do for these nutjobs. I'm afraid we're in for a long summer.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
This is literally the exact opposite of everything that's reported elsewhere. Thus far, authorities have said that they believe the brothers were acting alone - not as part of a terrorist cell. Also, I think the three people who were taken into custody cited by the article were released. I think they were friends of the younger one who were taken in for questioning and found to be innocent of any potential involvement.

I think people need to calm down and wait for actual information. Thus far, much more of the media than I would think has been rather tempered in drawing conclusions about motives and "sleeper cells" and the extent Islam was involved in the attacks. That's a good thing.
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Honestly, I would not be surprised if we weren't getting the straight scoop. The last thing our economy needs is fear based on terrorist attacks. To think we're privy to the down-and-dirty-skinny is probably wishful.
 
you obviously didn't see the sunday talk shows, you were probably too busy talking

y'know, sharing your knowledge

rushing to judgement (mtp):

There are a couple of things to remember, David, I think for all of us. With the death of Osama Bin Laden, Islamic rage did not go away. In fact, in some ways it's more dangerous. This is a perfect example. You can't get intel on the lone operator. There’s a lot we still need to know about what motivated him, obviously. He’s a Chechen, but their beef is with Russia not with us. But, he’s also a Muslim. And the fact is that Islamic rage is still out there. We saw it in Times Square. We were very, very fortunate under those circumstances. So there has to be more vigilance, obviously.
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Brokaw: "Islamic Rage Did Not Go Away; In Some Ways It's More Dangerous" | RealClearPolitics

note to mr brokaw---blowing legs off the bodies of two dozen americans at the finish line of the boston marathon doesn't really make much of a statement about or do much harm to or have much of even the most remote connection to, umm, vladimir putin

i mean, on the surface of things...
 
The Prof said:
Boston Marathon Bombings: FBI Hunts Terror 'Sleeper Cell' Linked to Tsarnaev Brothers - IBTimes UK

our worst nitemare

the fbi originally denied contacting the bomber

dzhokhar was shot thru the throat, perhaps self inflicted

the three arrested in new bedford were two young men and a woman from kazakhstan

the plates on her bmw read terrorista

the brothers tsarnaev were here as refugees, granted political asylum

the younger became an american citizen on, of all dates, 9-11-2009

obama urges deliberation

Obama Warns "Not To Rush To Judgement" About "Motivations" And "Groups" | RealClearPolitics

on the other side, the locals play political polyanna

Boston mayor says brothers acted alone - POLITICO.com

pray for the victims and the loved ones
Click to expand...

Our worst nightmare is a handful of folk who can kill up to what 3-5 people/event? You have some rather calm nightmares.
 
their plates read terrorista???? Lol these guys are big time.
 
nyt yesterday

With one suspect dead and the other captured and lying grievously wounded in a hospital, the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings turned on Saturday to questions about the men’s motives, and to the significance of an overseas trip one of them took last year.

Federal investigators are hurrying to review a visit that one of the suspected bombers made to Chechnya and Dagestan, predominantly Muslim republics in the north Caucasus region of Russia. Both have active militant separatist movements. Members of Congress expressed concern about the F.B.I.’s handling of a request from Russia before the trip to examine the man’s possible links to extremist groups in the region.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died early Friday after a shootout with the police in Watertown, Mass., spent six months in Dagestan in 2012, and analysts said that sojourn might have marked a crucial step in his alleged path toward the bombings.

The investigators began scrutinizing the events in the months and years before the fatal attack, as Boston began to feel like itself for the first time in nearly a week.

The significance of the trip was magnified late Friday when the F.B.I. disclosed in a statement that in 2011 “a foreign government” — now acknowledged by officials to be Russia — asked for information about Tamerlan. The request was “based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”

The senior law enforcement official said the Russians feared he could be a risk, and “they had something on him and were concerned about him, and him traveling to their region.”

Chechen extremists pose a greater threat to Russia than they do to the United States, counterterrorism specialists say, though some of the groups have had ties to Al Qaeda.

But the F.B.I. never followed up on Tamerlan once he returned, a senior law enforcement official acknowledged on Saturday, adding that its investigation did not turn up anything and it did not have the legal authority to keep tabs on him. Investigators are now scrambling to review that trip, and learn about any extremists who might have influenced, trained or directed Tamerlan while he was there.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/us/boston-marathon-bombings.html?hp&_r=0
 
upsideguy said:
I think its a bit premature to be particularly outraged about what did or did not happen here and whether it could have realistically been prevented.

Give it a few weeks for more information to come out about who was really behind this (if other than what we now see) and what the motivates were. Just like reporting on the news before you have the facts leads one astray; so does jumping to conclusions about a small set of facts when there is so much that we do not know.

This issue could be far more (or less) complex than we currently think it is. Its hard to have an intelligent discussion now.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's even a little bit premature to be outraged about this incident.
 
MaggieD said:
Honestly, I would not be surprised if we weren't getting the straight scoop. The last thing our economy needs is fear based on terrorist attacks. To think we're privy to the down-and-dirty-skinny is probably wishful.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the political ramications for the politicos who have been claiming that the war on terror is over and the enemy has been destroyed.
 
nbc is certainly NOT rushing anywhere

but they're asking

david gregory's LEAD question, "was there a foreign connection to terrorism, what do we know?"

the peacock's justice correspondent, pete williams:

I think that’s the biggest question for investigators now is, A, you know, why did he turn this way? But, B, where did he get his expertise in explosives? Where did he practice them? It seems really unlikely that these two bombs successfully were detonated without some practice runs. Where did he learn to do that? Where did he practice? Those are the big questions.
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April 21: Deval Patrick, Mike Rogers, Dick Durbin, Pete Williams, Michael Leiter, Michael Chertoff, Tom Brokaw, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Peggy Noonan, Jeffrey Goldberg - Meet the Press - Transcripts | NBC News

cbs news last nite asked raised the exact same concerns

fyi, the older of the brothers, tamerlan, named after the great warrior, got in pretty serious trouble with the law in 09 for hitting his girlfriend, a convert to islam

i also need to make a correction---the younger brother became a us citizen on 9-11-12, not 2009

mike rogers, republican chair of house intelligence, told david that when tamerlan traveled to russia in 09 the then 22 year old used a false name

david was very concerned, "did the fbi miss something," asking guest after guest

david gregory---the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the times square bomb which woulda worked except it failed to detonate, the 16 incidents in ny...

he brought on dick durbin, they got very political, agitprop knows no rest

do you need more money ("is that a call in fact for re-examination of whether additional resources are needed?")?

will this hurt immigration reform?

enemy combatant status for the killer, "you oppose that?"

"you bet i do"

during the panel, brokaw took a shot at drones---"i think we also have to examine the use of drones"

as if any of this were obama's fault

the second panel discussion was devoted to our domestic gun issue, a culture of violence...

all of the above is mere fyi---you very evidently need to clue in
 
STEPHANOPOULOS: But let's talk more broadly about the terrorist threat we're facing right now and how we deal with it. (inaudible) Martha Raddatz about the possibility of a connection to overseas groups or an al Qaeda connection. No evidence of that yet. But that could be the nightmare scenario.

[Chief Global Affairs Correspondence for ABC Martha] RADDATZ: It is a nightmare scenario, and that is where they're focused now. They're focused on whether there is an overseas connection. And an overseas connection in terms of whether the older brother got any training there. I think we have to talk about these missing years in a way.

The Russians alerted the U.S. that he was radicalized, that he was involved in groups, somewhere over there, they believed. That was 2011, when the FBI investigated --

STEPHANOPOULOS: At the request of the Russians.

RADDATZ: At the request of the Russians. But then he goes back. So what happened before 2011 to alert the Russians? Was it visiting internet sites? Was it a specific group they were concerned about that he knew they were communicating with? And I think those missing years are what they're going to concentrate on, and whether that continued, whether he got trained by someone who right now is training someone else to do the same thing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And David Remnick, you've spent a lot of time in Russia for "The Washington Post" and everybody's going to be looking at these six months. We know his parents went back and lived in Russia for some time. From the mother we've also heard that she says the FBI was on top of Tamerlan for several years.

[The New Yorker's Dave] REMNICK: Well the parents moved back to Dagestan in order to, because the father wants to die there. He's very, very sick. That's the circumstance as far as we know and we have no link between the parents and anything like jihadist interests at all. In fact they seem to be utterly shocked and in disbelief.

Now the older brother has been visiting jihadist websites, I spent Friday looking at his YouTube list and they are extremely frightening, ominous websites, pro-al Qaeda. There was one preacher that's going on and on about the evils of the magic of Harry Potter. All kinds of deluded things that he was involved in.

The Twitter feed of the younger brother hints of this kind of thing as well. So there's no question that they weren't merely religious, they were, there's no sin in being religious obviously, but interested in jihadist struggle, global jihad is now the slogan in that region, in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya.
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'This Week' Transcript - ABC News
 
time mag, today

"why the fbi and the white house will face hard questions about their boston bombing interviews"

swampland's conclusion:

But FISA court judges don’t often reject warrant requests. And if the foreign government thought or knew that Tamerlan was traveling abroad to associate with “underground groups” that could have been enough. Which raises the question how hard, if at all, the FBI and prosecutors in Boston tried to get a FISA warrant.
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Why the FBI, White House Will Face Hard Questions About Their Boston Bombing Interviews | TIME.com
 
the lady's look:

Russian authorities warned the FBI in early 2011 that suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have been a follower of “radical Islam,” a revelation that raised new questions in Congress on Saturday about whether the Boston Marathon attacks that killed three and wounded more than 170 could have been prevented.

A senior congressional aide privy to the Boston Marathon terror investigation confirmed Saturday that the FBI received the warning after Tsarnaev’s apparently suspicious activities caught the attention of Russian authorities keeping close surveillance on militant Islamist groups in the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union.

“The FBI had this guy on the radar and somehow he fell off,” said the congressional aide, who said oversight committees on Capitol Hill are seeking answers from counterterrorism officials. “We heard for several days leading up to this there was no intelligence. Now we know there could have been intelligence.”
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FBI was warned 2 years ago of alleged bomber's radical shift - Metro - The Boston Globe

boston's (dem) congressmen, stephen lynch and ed markey:

US Representative Stephen Lynch, whose district includes parts of Boston, said Saturday that he has a number of questions for US and Russian officials about what they knew about the brothers, and when. “These are two relatively young men who don’t seem to have the ability to finance what I see going on,” Lynch said in an interview. “They seem to be very well supplied. How do these type of individuals like that get the training and resources to conduct an operation like this?”

Lynch, who sits on a congressional oversight panel on terrorist financing, says another key question is how the alleged terrorists became radicalized in the first place. “Did that happen with direct foreign assistance, or were there mentors who guided them in this operation and inspired them?” he said.

Lynch, a Democrat who is running in the special election for a Senate seat, said investigators are also scrambling to learn more from the Russian government about why Tamerlan Tsarnaev gave them concern in 2011. “What was the source of their inquiry? What suspicions drove that? It might have been his associations with individuals there. Were [Russian authorities] forthcoming with the FBI?”

In response to written questions, Lynch’s primary opponent, Representative Edward J. Markey, whose district includes Watertown, said he has similar questions, including “whether the bombers had help in their deadly plans, why they struck our country, and what we can do to thwart future attacks.”
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The Prof said:
nbc is certainly NOT rushing anywhere

but they're asking

david gregory's LEAD question, "was there a foreign connection to terrorism, what do we know?"

the peacock's justice correspondent, pete williams:



April 21: Deval Patrick, Mike Rogers, Dick Durbin, Pete Williams, Michael Leiter, Michael Chertoff, Tom Brokaw, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Peggy Noonan, Jeffrey Goldberg - Meet the Press - Transcripts | NBC News

cbs news last nite asked raised the exact same concerns

fyi, the older of the brothers, tamerlan, named after the great warrior, got in pretty serious trouble with the law in 09 for hitting his girlfriend, a convert to islam

i also need to make a correction---the younger brother became a us citizen on 9-11-12, not 2009

mike rogers, republican chair of house intelligence, told david that when tamerlan traveled to russia in 09 the then 22 year old used a false name

david was very concerned, "did the fbi miss something," asking guest after guest

david gregory---the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the times square bomb which woulda worked except it failed to detonate, the 16 incidents in ny...

he brought on dick durbin, they got very political, agitprop knows no rest

do you need more money ("is that a call in fact for re-examination of whether additional resources are needed?")?

will this hurt immigration reform?

enemy combatant status for the killer, "you oppose that?"

"you bet i do"

during the panel, brokaw took a shot at drones---"i think we also have to examine the use of drones"

as if any of this were obama's fault

the second panel discussion was devoted to our domestic gun issue, a culture of violence...

all of the above is mere fyi---you very evidently need to clue in
Click to expand...

You choose to rely upon the scripts of the talking heads from two of the most unreliable and politically dense "news" orgs in our nation and you rely on them for accuracy? Good reporting/analysis? What's next, Bat Boy did it! (Enquirer reference for the uninformed)?

I'll repeat what others have been trying to get across to you - it's too soon to know any of this with certainty. The info the agencies have been collecting, revealing, is not going to be fully available to us yet, and it may be some time before that happens. The bits and pieces these talking heads are playing with are either outright speculations made up to advance the news cycle or bits and pieces of the picture of the three blind men describing the elephant.
 
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apdst said:
I don't think it's even a little bit premature to be outraged about this incident.
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It's just like Jello. There's always room for outrage!

Time to lock all hotheads up in the cellar and take their one bullet out of their breast pocket before they Barney Fife it into their foot.
 
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dupe...
 
The Prof said:
ask markey and lynch
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Huh? You mean two congressmen, neither of whom know anything more than has been released to the public and what they've see on the news?

Btw, neither of them serve on any sort of intel committees.
 
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