Ten years ago, on April 15, during the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev targeted the Boston Marathon with explosive devices that killed Lingzi Lu (23), Krystle Campbell (29), and only right years old Martin Richard. The powerful bomb which was placed inside the pressure cooker also wounded more than 250 people at the crowded annual event. Immediately following the explosion, US police killed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a so-called shootout and nabbed his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. His death sentence was overturned in 2020 and reinstated in 2022. This January, Tsarnaev made another bid to have his death sentence overturned, and Dzhokhar, 29, has to like his chances. That invites a review of how the bombers got to Boston in the first place.
It may be mentioned here that, shootout or encounter is a very common phenomenon in the United States, where members of the law enforcement agencies kill criminals and terrorists despite the fact that the US authorities regularly accuse law enforcement agencies in foreign countries for similar actions. Back in 2021, the US Department of Treasury sanctioned several officers of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite force in Bangladesh despite the fact that RAB has been showing brilliant performance in combating terrorism, militancy, drug, weapon and human trafficking and other forms of serious crimes.
The case of Tsarnaev jihadist family
According to media reports, Anzor Tsarnaev arrived in April 2002 in the United States on a tourist visa with his two sons – Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The family gained asylum and ten years later, on September 11, 2012, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a US citizen despite security concerns. Back in 2011, the Russian government alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stating Tsarnaevs had ties to Chechen terrorists. According to NBC News, more than a year before the gruesome bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled back and forth from Dagestan for jihadist training. Despite Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s suspicious back and forth trips to Dagestan, he was never intercepted at the JFK airport because security agencies claim that his name was misspelled in the security database. Meanwhile, the FBI conducted an investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev but closed the probe in June of 2011 as they claimed to have found “no links to terrorism”.
As Bostonians and people across the US may recall, the FBI committed a similar lapse in 2009. The federal agency knew that US Army Major Nidal Hasan was communicating with Al Qaeda terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki about killing American citizens. But, the Federal Bureau of Investigation dropped the investigation and on November 5, 2009, Nidal Hasan murdered 13 Americans and wounded more than 30 at Ford Hood, Texas yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he fired. As Pvt. Francheska Velez was pregnant, so the death toll should be 14. Despite such carnage, the lessons of Fort Hood went unlearned, as the US authorities in most cases have been behaving as appeasers of radical Islamic militants.
According to the Washington Times report, American security failure allowed Tamerlan Tsarnaev to attend terrorist graduate school. He learned about the pressure cooker bomb, a favorite of Al Qaeda, which described how to make them in an online article titled ‘Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom’. Islamist militants also produced a chapter on the bombs in The Lone Mujahid Pocketbook. The Tsarnaevs packed their devices with nails, ball bearings and other shrapnel.
The pressure cooker gives the timed explosion incredible force to kill and main at random, the hallmark of Islamist terrorism. Security cameras showed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev intentionally placing a bomb near a group of children. The device sent nails, glass and BBs into Martin Richard’s internal organs and spinal cord and nearly severed his left arm. The child bled to death on the sidewalk as his helpless mother looked on.
Shrapnel struck Lingzi Lu in the leg and the graduate student bled to death in minutes. The blast nearly severed the legs of Krysten Campbell, who also bled to death on the sidewalk. The hundreds of injuries included loss of limbs, loss of hearing, and blindness.
Fox News in a report said, in the aftermath, with Tsarnaevs still at large, President Barack Obama called the bombing an “act of terrorism” proclaiming, “we will find whoever harmed our citizens and we will bring them to justice”.
According to CNN report, on April 18, 2013, the Tsarnaev brothers ambushed MIT police officer Sean Collier, shooting him in the head, neck and hand. Police took down Tamerlan in a shootout and Dzhokhar was captured in nearby Watertown, hiding in a boat.
In 2015, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on 30 charges, including the killing of Sean Collier, and sentenced to death. In 2020, an appeal court overturned the sentence, ruling that jurors had not been properly screened for bias. As it turned out, this was not Tsarnaev’s only victory.
During Joe Biden’s presidency, the terrorist bomber received US$1,400 in COVID relief payments and by December 22, 2021, Tsarnaev had approximately US$3,885.06 in his inmate trust account. Instead of making payments to families of the victims, as the court had ruled, Tsarnaev sent money to his siblings for gifts, support, books and such.
In early March, 2022, the US Supreme Court voted 6-3 to reinstate Tsarnaev’s death sentence, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for majority and Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan dissenting. Despite the decision, as National Public Radio observed, “Tsarnaev will not be executed any time soon”.
Meanwhile in 2020, US President Joe Biden promised to abolish the federal death penalty, and his administration reinstated the federal execution moratorium which was ended by President Donald Trump. As the bomber may have noticed, Joe Biden also has trouble calling out Islamic terrorism.
In November of 2009, Biden expressed “sympathies to the families of the brave soldiers who fell today”. The vice president did not explain how the Fort Hood soldiers “fell”, and failed to name a single victim, No word about terrorism, no naming of the killer, and it was all just a “senseless tragedy”.
In a ceremony one year after the Boston Marathon attack, Biden barely mentioned the victims. and spent more time talking about himself, how he had “traveled the world as vice president”, and so forth. The Delaware Democrat failed to name the jihadist Tsarnaev brothers, and only once used the word terrorism.
“We will never yield!” Biden said, and “America will never, ever stand down”, because “we own the finish line!” Nidal Hasan (sentenced to death in 2013) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have room for reasonable doubt.
In Biden’s disastrous and shameful retreat from Afghanistan, 13 Americans perished from a terrorist bomb and Biden gifted the Taliban with billions in American military gear. If that is not standing down it’s hard to know what to call it. For Biden, the humiliating retreat was an “extraordinary success”, and the Delaware Democrat is now standing down on the home front.
With Joe Biden in the White House, terrorists and foreign adversaries can believe that they own the finish line, meaning, under Biden’s presidency, America is a risk!
