The
identities of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing -- Chechen brothers
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 -- appear tentatively to
confirm several of Stratfor's suspicions. From this profile, the simple nature
of the attack, their efforts to rob a convenience store and their lack of an
escape plan, we can at least say at this point in time that they were what we
refer to as grassroots militants. Typically being amateurs, such militants
clearly still pose a significant threat.
Here’s
Stratfor’s analysis: Just after 10 p.m. on April 18, the Tsarnaev brothers were
identified after having robbed a convenience store in Cambridge, Mass., just
three miles from Boston, hours earlier. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology
police officer, who responded to the robbery, was shot and killed and found in
his car by fellow responding officers. The two suspects later hijacked an SUV
at gunpoint, releasing the driver unharmed. Authorities later caught up to the
suspects, and a car chase ensued.
Just
after midnight, the car chase ended with a gunfight in Watertown, Mass. The
suspects reportedly threw explosive devices at police, though it is not yet
confirmed what types of explosives allegedly were used. During the firefight,
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wounded, taken into custody and later reported dead. Some
press reports suggest he may have been wearing some sort of suicide belt or
vest. Dzhokhar escaped by driving the stolen SUV through the police barricade
and remains at large. According to media reports, a third accomplice was
detained earlier this morning by authorities and is being questioned.
According
to The New York Times, the two men
are from Chechnya. Their family also reportedly lived briefly in Makhachkala,
the capital of Dagestan, before moving to the United States in 2002. Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev's profile on VKontakte, a
Russian social media website, said he attended school at the School No. 1 of
Makhachkala, spoke English, Russian and Chechen and listed his worldview as
Islam. A school administrator from the School No. 1 said the two suspects and
their family had previously lived in Kyrgyzstan before moving to Dagestan.
Because
they are grassroots actors, there is likely only a small chance that the
authorities will discover a formal link between the suspects and a state
sponsor or a professional terrorist group such as al Qaeda or one of its
franchise groups. Any link will likely be ideological rather than operational,
although it is possible that the two have attended some type of basic militant
training abroad. Given what we have learned about the suspects and the nature
of the improvised explosive devices they constructed, it is very likely that
the authorities will find that the brothers had read and studied al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire Magazines.
This
case also highlights Stratfor’s analysis that the jihadist threat now
predominantly stems from grassroots operatives who live in the West rather than
teams of highly trained operatives sent to the United States from overseas,
like the team that executed the 9/11 attacks. This demonstrates how the
jihadist threat has diminished in severity but broadened in scope in recent
years -- a trend that Strafor’s analysts expect to continue.
There
will always be plenty of soft targets in a free society, and it is incredibly
easy to kill people, even for untrained operatives. In this case, the brothers
conducted an attack that was within their capabilities rather than attempting
something more grandiose that would require outside assistance -- and which
could therefore have put them in jeopardy of running into a government
informant as they sought help. It is thus important for citizens to practice
good situational awareness and to serve as grassroots defenders against the
grassroots threat.
I agree with Stratfor’s call for citizens to “practice
good situational awareness” and believe this can be achieved by linking the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) with neighborhood Block Watch programs. I wrote an article on this idea called “A
Strategy To Prevent Future Boston Marathon Bombings”. Please read it and contact me on your thoughts and recommendations for starting such an enhanced nationwide Block Watch program.
Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association Of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes the online spy series "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster in the Caribbean." Have a different perspective, thought or comment? Contact him on the Secure Contact Mail Form.
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