Boston Marathon Bombing Thread

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Chechnya has a very large extremist Muslim population.  ripe picking grounds for recruiters.

Sadly one doesn't need to go outside of our borders to recruit anymore. 

Look what one fundamentalist asshole was able to organize from within Canada.  And why haven't we found the guy responsible for recruiting these kids in the first place?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/04/18/pol-weston-algeria-gas-plant-attack-mauratania.html

Canadian arrested prior to Algeria attack

CBC News has learned that Ali Medlej, one of the two former London, Ont., high school friends linked to al-Qaeda and killed during an attack on an Algerian refinery three months ago, had been arrested a year before the bloody gas plant siege but was later released.

It is a twist of fate that could have kept him from the attack — and his own death.

Indeed, a third high school friend arrested around the same time as Medlej and not released, is still alive in jail in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

Sources tell CBC News that Medlej was one of 36 people arrested by Mauritanian authorities in late 2011 during a broad round-up of suspected al-Qaeda extremists in the North African nation.

Barely four years out of high school at the time, Medlej was held and interrogated for about 40 days, and then simply released into the deserts of Mauritania.

Ordinarily, Canada's diplomats in the region would have intervened on behalf of one of their own citizens arrested with a Canadian passport and a student visa.


Canadian officials not told of arrest

But sources tell CBC News that no one told Canadian officials there about Medlej's arrest and detention — not Ali Medlej, not his family, not Mauritanian officials.

By the time they found out, it was too late – Medlej had slipped away on route to his murderous mission at the Algerian refinery in January this year.

Police and intelligence sources say it is likely that Medlej and high school pal Xris Katsiroubas blew themselves up in a suicide finale to the four-day gas plant siege by the two Canadians and 30 other militants linked to al-Qaeda.

Both were under 25 when they died.

A third former high school classmate, Aaron Yoon, was arrested in the same al-Qaeda sweep that nabbed Medlej in Mauritania.

But unlike his pal, Yoon was not released, instead sentenced in 2012 to two years in jail allegedly for having ties to a terrorist group and posing a danger to the national security of Mauritania.

There is no evidence Yoon ever planned to participate in the Algerian refinery attack, even if he had not be incarcerated, and he has denied any involvement in terrorist activities.

Fourth high school friend missing

A fourth member of the group of London school chums, Ryan Enderi, is missing.

The arrest and release of Medlej more than a year before the refinery attack is only the latest twist in this bizarre story of the four friends from London South Secondary School who left their comfortable suburban neighbourhoods and backyard swimming pools for the sands of North Africa.

It is also a story that continues to raise many disturbing questions amid an increasingly deafening silence from Canadian officials.

First and foremost, did someone drop the ball?

CBC News has confirmed that CSIS interviewed friends, family and other associates of several of the boys as far back as 2007 after the parents of one of the then high school teenagers called the police.

Sometime later, CSIS investigators apparently became sufficiently concerned about what the boys were up to that the intelligence service called in the RCMP to conduct a criminal investigation.

CBC News has also confirmed the RCMP were interviewing former acquaintances of the four in June 2012.

But that's more than a year after all four had left the country, and only months before the gas refinery attack.

Was it all a bungled surveillance and investigation by the RCMP or CSIS – or both?

Or is it an alarming fact of religious radicalization that police had no grounds to intervene until it was too late?

And who's to blame for radicalizing the boys?


London resident believed responsible for radicalization

Informed sources have told CBC News that investigators now believe one person in the London area was largely responsible for turning the four teenagers – including a Greek Orthodox and a Korean Catholic – into Islamic radicals, at least two of whom who were prepared to trade their high-school T-shirts for suicide bomb vests.

Who is he and why haven't the police arrested him? Or did they lose track of him, too?

Finally, parents everywhere must be wondering what law enforcement and other government agencies are doing to help ensure no one turns their own kids into would-be terrorists.

So far, the RCMP has said only that their investigation is continuing, and they are asking the public for information on the London four.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

there are posts where you should really make it clear if youre being sarcastic or serious dan.
if you were being sarcastic its the wrong thread to be so.
if you were being serious its the wrong thread to be so.
better yet there are times when you should just not post at all.

I don't understand what Chechnya has to do with the US or Boston.

Chechnya has a very large extremist Muslim population.  ripe picking grounds for recruiters.

whatever

You really have no idea about what is socially appropriate do you? Let me spell it out.

For a lot of people something like a marathon would be a lifetime achievement. They would train for months trying to improve themselves. Public events like this are a celebration of life.

In this case that has been destroyed for many people, beyond those that were injured or killed. It is not a joking matter. It is not a time to try to be the center of attention.

Quit being lame.

[Longdan]

The Chechens have been responsible for a serious terrorist threat to Russia for some years.  There have been some high profile bombings
including some that were probably the Russian government or organised crime but were blamed on them. 
Then there was that long and costly war against Chechen nationals.  Chechnaya has been a source of trouble for Russia and now
some people apparently from there appear to have attacked the US.  This is a part of this thread, scolders and there is no sarcasm or political baiting
intended whatsoever.

[Arctic Blast]

House to house search continues. The number of IED's that have been either disarmed or detonated by authorities now apparently stands at 7. K9 units are starting to run low simply because the dogs are worn out. Police are now asking residents to stop tweeting specific addresses and the like, since the suspect is probably following all of this on a smart phone. They've taken down at least 4 people thus far in the past couple of hours, but none of them turned out to be the guy. It's almost weird hearing how calm the cops are over the scanner about everything. Hell, it's scary when they DO start to freak out a bit.

Also, I've read that these guys are from Kyrgyzstan? Sounds like they spent more time there than they ever did in Chechnya.

[Con]

My unwarranted speculation is he is lying dead hidden in some spot he squirreled into with a self inflicted gunshot to the head.

Con

[Staggerwing]

My unwarranted speculation is he is lying dead hidden in some spot he squirreled into with a self inflicted gunshot to the head.

Con

That is actually what I've been thinking as well. That, or he might have been wounded in the exchange of gunfire and later bled out behind some dumpster in back of a dirty book store.

[Arctic Blast]

Not sure what the distance is from Watertown to Belmont, but they're now dispatching someone to a park there to investigate a suspicious package. Could just be paranoia (which is somewhat reasonable under the circumstances) making people see things. Or this thing just got bigger.

Okay, it looks like Belmont is just north of Watertown. Hopefully it's a false alarm.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Unless there is clear evidence of who might have given support to these uckerfays it will be hard to retaliate. Chechnya is not exactly a foreign power but a rebellious Russian republic.

....we only need to look away, and give Putin a thumps up for to clear out that whole area once and for good with massive military force.

for guys who started study engineering at MIT, the bomb designs was fortunately poor

"Police expanded their search to Dartmouth, Massachusetts where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was enrolled as a student at the University of Massachusetts. The school was closed Friday."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/19/us-usa-explosions-boston-shooting-idUSBRE93I0GQ20130419

He went to the state school, no association with MIT.

[Arctic Blast]

Block-by-block search almost done. Once it is, the 'stay inside' order will be officially lifted. The trains are also running again. So either this kid is dead somewhere and they haven't found the body yet, or he got away during the night.

Also going to post a photo that came out of Syria earlier. I don't really think it's political...actually, I think it's pretty damn awesome :

[W8taminute]

IDK Artic, I'm kind of insulted by the statement in the banner those people are holding. 

[Arctic Blast]

IDK Artic, I'm kind of insulted by the statement in the banner those people are holding.

Eh, it isn't like they're wrong. I read it more as "It's terrible. We know. We're sorry you have to go through it, too."

[LongBlade]

There was an interview of a guy in the area on TV. He stated he overheard two cops walking by discussing the fact that the second guy had been wounded and that DNA evidence confirmed it.

If so, it's possible he's simply bleeding out somewhere in a hole.

That would be too bad. We really want him alive to track down the rest of his network.

[steve58]

...sounds like they've found/shot the 2nd bomber....  Hope he's still alive so they can get some info from him...

...and now explosions?  Don't think this kid is going to be taken alive  :(

[Staggerwing]

That Watertown scene is still very active right now, with multiple live feeds coming from the news outlets on cable. If they did get him already there is still no official confirmation.

[Arctic Blast]

He's cornered in a boat in someone's backyard. I guess he was under the tarp, but they found him with thermal imaging. There was a bit of a firefight, and they kept him disoriented and pinned with flashbangs until he was scene was surrounded.

They're staying back and bringing in a negotiator now. EOD robots moving up to see if he's wearing a bomb vest. And they're lighting the scene up big time with floodlights and helos. Clearly they want him alive or that boat would be splinters by now.