Russia contacted US about bomber on multiple occasions

Boston Globe:
Russian authorities contacted the US government with concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev not once but “multiple’’ times, including an alert it sent after he was first investigated by FBI agents in Boston, raising new questions about whether the FBI should have paid more attention to the suspected Boston Marathon bomber, US senators briefed on the inves­tigation said Tuesday.

The FBI has previously said it interviewed Tsarnaev in early 2011 after it was initially contacted by the ­Russians. In their review, completed in summer 2011, the bureau found no ­evidence that Tsarnaev was a threat. “The FBI requested but did not receive more specific or additional information from” Russia, the agency said last week.

Following a closed briefing of the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said he believed that Russia alerted the United States about Tsarnaev in “multiple contacts,” including at least once since October 2011.

The details came amid revelations that the brothers may have planned to escape to New York last week with a car full of bombs, according to a senior law enforce­ment official. “We just killed a cop. We blew up the Marathon. And now we’re going to New York. Don’t [expletive] with us,” Tamerlan told a witness, the official said.
... 
I don't think the FBI took the threat as seriously as they should have.  That seems consistent with Obama's policy of underplaying the terrorist threats to the US.  It seems also clear that these two were looking to commit more mass murders.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains