WTF? - Islam might have had secondary role in Boston attacks

[Quantum Windbag]

Can you possibly tell me what the primary roles was? Is there anyone here who can honestly say that, if this had turned out to be some sort of wackadoodle from a WBC that this same guy would be lining up the same experts lamenting about how Christians are violent?

An emerging portrait of the brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombings suggested that the older of the two, *Tamerlan Tsarnaev, embraced a more radical form of Islam in recent years.
But scholars cautioned Friday against concluding that the Tsarnaevs’ motives were purely religious. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a firefight with police early Friday morning, appeared to sympathize with Islamic extremists agitating for Chechen independence from Russia.
But family, neighbors, friends, and social media sources painted a complex picture of the brothers’ religiosity.
“The story that seems to be developing here is more along the lines of standard alienated man goes out and commits atrocities, much more like the school shootings we’ve seen than organized Islamic insurgency,” said Yuri Zhukov, a fellow at the Program on Global Society and Security at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center who studies extremism in the Caucasus.

Islam might have had secondary role in Boston Marathon attacks - Metro - The Boston Globe

 

[waltky]

Boston bombing hospital aftermath...

Boston nurses tell of bloody marathon aftermath
21 Apr.`13 — The screams and cries of bloody marathon bombing victims still haunt the nurses who treated them one week ago. They did their jobs as they were trained to do, putting their own fears in a box during their 12-hour shifts so they could better comfort their patients.

Only now are these nurses beginning to come to grips with what they endured — and are still enduring as they continue to care for survivors. They are angry, sad and tired. A few confess they would have trouble caring for the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if he were at their hospital and they were assigned his room. And they are thankful. They tick off the list of their hospital colleagues for praise: from the security officers who guarded the doors to the ER crews who mopped up trails of blood. The doctors and — especially — the other nurses. Nurses from Massachusetts General Hospital, which treated 22 of the 187 victims the first day, candidly recounted their experiences in interviews with The Associated Press. Here are their memories:

THEY WERE SCREAMING

Megann Prevatt, ER nurse: "These patients were terrified. They were screaming. They were crying ... We had to fight back our own fears, hold their hands as we were wrapping their legs, hold their hands while we were putting IVs in and starting blood on them, just try to reassure them: 'We don't know what happened, but you're here. You're safe with us.' ... I didn't know if there were going to be more bombs exploding. I didn't know how many patients we'd be getting. All these thoughts are racing through your mind."

SHRAPNEL, NAILS

Adam Barrett, ICU nurse, shared the patient bedside with investigators searching for clues that might break the case. "It was kind of hard to hear somebody say, 'Don't wash that wound. You might wash evidence away.'" Barrett cleaned shrapnel and nails from the wounds of some victims, side by side with law enforcement investigators who wanted to examine wounds for blast patterns. The investigator's request took him aback at first. "I wasn't stopping to think, 'What could be in this wound that could give him a lead?'"

THEIR FACES, THEIR SMILES

Jean Acquadra, ICU nurse, keeps herself going by thinking of her patients' progress. "The strength is seeing their faces, their smiles, knowing they're getting better. They may have lost a limb, but they're ready to go on with their lives. They want to live. I don't know how they have the strength, but that's my reward: Knowing they're getting better." She is angry and doesn't think she could take care of Tsarnaev, who is a patient at another hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: "I don't have any words for him."

THE NEED FOR JUSTICE

See also:

Police: Bombing suspects planned more attacks
21 Apr.`13 — As churches paused to mourn the dead and console the survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing Sunday, the city's police commissioner said the two suspects had such a large cache of weapons that they were probably planning other attacks. The surviving suspect remained hospitalized and unable to speak with a gunshot wound to the throat.

After the two brothers engaged in a gun battle with police early Friday, authorities found many unexploded homemade bombs at the scene, along with more than 250 rounds of ammunition. Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the stockpile was "as dangerous as it gets in urban policing." "We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene — the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had — that they were going to attack other individuals. That's my belief at this point." Davis told CBS's "Face the Nation."

On "Fox News Sunday," he said authorities cannot be positive there are not more explosives somewhere that have not been found. But the people of Boston are safe, he insisted. The suspects in the twin bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 180 are two ethnic Chechen brothers from southern Russia — 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan. Their motive remained unclear. The older brother was killed during a getaway attempt. The younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was still in serious condition Sunday after his capture Friday from a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard. Authorities would not comment on whether he had been questioned.

Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tsarnaev's throat wound raised questions about when he will be able to talk again, if ever. The wound "doesn't mean he can't communicate, but right now I think he's in a condition where we can't get any information from him at all," Coats told ABC's "This Week." It was not clear whether Tsarnaev was shot by police or inflicted the wound himself. In the final standoff with police, shots were fired from the boat, but investigators have not determined where the gunfire was aimed, Davis said. In an interview with The Associated Press, the parents of Tamerlan Tsarnaev insisted Sunday that he came to Dagestan and Chechnya last year to visit relatives and had nothing to do with the militants operating in the volatile part of Russia. His father said he slept much of the time.

The younger Tsarnaev could be charged any day. The most serious charge available to federal prosecutors would be the use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people, which carries a possible death sentence. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty. Across the rattled streets of Boston, churches opened their doors to remember the dead and ease the grief of the living. At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in South Boston, photographs of the three people killed in the attack and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer slain Thursday were displayed on the altar, each face illuminated by a glowing white pillar candle. "I hope we can all heal and move forward," said Kelly McKernan, who was crying as she left the service. "And obviously, the Mass today was a first step for us in that direction."

More Police: Bombing suspects planned more attacks