Monday, April 15, 2013

Accident, Crime, or Attack?

Explosions at Boston Marathon.

UPDATE: I hope everyone realizes that if an attack that bombs are often timed to go off when first responders arrive. This wouldn't apply to an accident, of course. And probably not for a crime.

UPDATE: From Twitter feed at Boston Globe. Are police really reporting direct eyeballs on targets when they report "secondary devices"? Or are they reporting what other people say they saw? Or think they saw?

Better to react like this is terror bombing in case it is and there are more bombs, but it is still early. Remember that crazy reporting about Katrina initially? No cannibalism. No shooting at government helicopters. Just a disaster, rumors, and reporters looking for a Pulitzwr.

UPDATE: Bombs appear to be small, at least. Otherwise we'd see a whole lot more dead and wounded. Map on one site showed a third bomb that did not explode near the medical tent. On purpose?

UPDATE: JFK Library explosion, too. Bombs were of similar size to those found in Iraq and Afghanistan. So bombs are big enough. But body count over there from an awful lot of those bombs, remember. Updates here. No casualties reported at library.

UPDATE: Library might have been accident. This is early remember. A lot of RUMORINT (rumor intelligence).

UPDATE: Reports of other unexploded bombs found, with bomb disposal units being sent to essentially do route clearance up that street for more bombs. But I'm not clear if these reports of other bombs are confirmed bombs or suspected bombs based on unidentified objects lying in dangerous (if they're bombs) places.

UPDATE: Two bombs that exploded and five undetonated bombs were part of the bombing. I wonder if more bombs are to be found? I wonder if there were bombs that weren't emplaced because of one reason or another?

A man of interest--perhaps just a victim who was in the wrong place at the wrong time--is being watched. So this was not an accident. Is it foreign al Qaeda terrorism? Local terrorism inspired by al Qaeda? "Just" local terrorism?