NEW YORK: The brothers accused of carrying out the Boston marathon bombings also planned to carry out an attack in Times Square, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday.
Bloomberg said the information had been provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It was a “horrific reminder that we remain targets for terrorists,” he told a press conference.
Law enforcement and national security sources said brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s original intent when they hijacked a car and its driver in Boston last Thursday night was to drive to New York with seven bombs and detonate them, but their plan fell apart when they became embroiled in a shootout with police.
One source said this was based on information that surviving suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, told investigators in a Boston hospital. He is recovering from gunshot wounds in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, where he was formally charged on Monday with crimes that could carry the death penalty.
Near Washington, the focus remained on intelligence leading up to the Boston Marathon bombing. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been on a federal database of potential terrorism suspects and that the United States had twice been warned about him by Russian authorities.
Congressional testimony earlier in the week had focused on whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation made mistakes in tracking the ethnic Chechen.
“We’re in the post-event witch hunt phase, which is predictable,” said James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, at a conference in Crystal City, Virginia. “I think it would be a real good idea to not hyperventilate for a while now until we actually get all the facts.”
The US Marshals Service, which is responsible for holding and transporting suspects outside of prison, declined to comment on whether or when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might be moved from the hospital.
“It is our policy not to comment on prisoner movements until they have been completed,” said spokeswoman Lynzey Donahue. “We do ensure that prisoners in our custody receive medical services in a secure environment.”
Meanwhile, in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Dagestan region, the parents of the two main suspects said their sons had been framed and accused US authorities of killing the older brother to put on a display.
Anzor Tsarnaev, the father, banged the table in anger as he announced plans to go from Russia to the United States to “find out the truth” and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother, said she had wanted to scream when she heard of her elder son’s death.
She denied Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, had made contact with militants during a stay in Russia last year and said she was considering giving up her US citizenship. “I wanted to scream to the whole world, ‘What did you do?’ What have you done with my son? He was alive. Why did you need to kill him? Why didn’t you send him to Guantanamo or whatever? Why? Why?,” she shouted at a new conference, her voice cracking.
“It is some kind of show, spectacle,” she said, adding that she wanted her son buried in Russia, where he has roots. Wearing a black head scarf, she spoke in accented English as she maintained her belief her sons were victims of a conspiracy. “Politics is a dirty business. I don’t know in whose interest this was. I only know one thing, that my children didn’t do this.” Reuters
