– BOSTON MARATHON BOMBINGS

On Monday 04/15/2013, at about 14:50 local time, close to the finish line of the annually Boston marathon in the Northern side of Boylston Street, two bombs exploded within few seconds, 50 to 100 meters apart, killing a 8 years old boy and two others. Some 176 people sought treatment at area hospitals, some of them gravely wounded, local Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. According to medical sources in Boston they were casualties of shattered glass, bloodstained pavement and severed limbs, 17 of them were critically wounded with multi impacts. Massachusetts General Hospital’s chief of trauma surgery said the next day doctors removed “a variety of sharp objects,” including pellets and nails, from the wounds of victims of the Boston Marathon explosions.

 

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick later said the two bombs were the only explosive devices found in the area. 

 

 

 

Police had said earlier on Monday that they were searching for a ‘dark-skinned or black male’ wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt and a backpack in connection with the twin explosions.Five minutes before the first explosion, officials said the hooded man attempted to gain entry to a restricted area but was turned away. Authorities say he may be a foreign national, based on his accent.

 

* The Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taleban, which has threatened attacks in the United States because of its support for the Pakistani government, denied any role in the marathon bombings Tuesday 04/16/2013. 

* The FBI and Boston police distributed, on Thursday 04/18/2013, through the media the photos and short video footages of what they believe are the two main suspects in the bombings based on the heavy bags they carried with them identical to the bags in which the bombs were carried. 

With a bomb strapped to his chest, one of the Boston Marathon suspects (no-1), identified later by the authorities as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed early Friday 04/19/2013 after he and his accomplice robbed a 7-Eleven, shot a police officer to death, carjacked an SUV and hurled explosives out the window in an extraordinary firefight with law enforcement, authorities said. The second suspect (no-2), identified later by the authorities as Tamerlan’s brother – Djokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the one in the white hat in photos released by the FBI, was on the loose, and police ordered people in the Boston suburb of Watertown to stay in their homes and businesses not to open. Boston shut down its buses and subway system for the hunt. The chaotic sequence of events started six hours after the FBI triggered a nationwide manhunt by releasing photos of the suspects, believed responsible for detonating two bombs at the marathon finish line Monday. 

Two law enforcement officials told NBC News that both men had international ties, had been in the United States about a year and had military experience. 

The suspect at large Djokhar Tsarnaev (2) was described by authorities as light-skinned and with brown, curly hair, and wearing a gray hoodie. 

Police shut a 4-mile stretch of streets between Cambridge, Mass., and Watertown because they could be littered with unexploded devices, and they locked down Watertown. Harvard University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston public schools all closed. Emerson University closed and told students to stay where they were. 

Andrew Kitzenberg, who lives in Watertown, said he saw the two men shooting at six police cars from 70 or 80 yards away. 

Investigators believe at least one of the two bombs that exploded at the marathon finish line was housed in an ordinary kitchen pressure cooker. 

 

 

 

* A preliminary examination of the cellphones and computers used by the Tsarnaev brothers has found no indication of an accomplice in the Boston Marathon bombing, according to a U.S. counter-terrorism source briefed on the FBI investigation, on 04/23/2013. 

 

 

 

 

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