The Boston Marathon Mysteries

Two weeks after the Boston bombings (April 15, 2:49 p.m.), the U.S. authorities have designated brothers Tamerlane and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as the perpetrators. They declared that they killed the elder of the two and arrested his brother and accomplice. The young man, aged 19, was hospitalized, but his injuries prevent him from communicating except through nodding. Regardless, he has allegedly admitted the facts.

However, nothing is known about the circumstances under which Tamerlane was killed, or about those surrounding the arrest of Dzhokhar. The two accomplices are said to have succumbed to the "Oswald syndrome" and wanted to distinguish themselves by killing, without reason or witnesses, a university campus police officer. Then they are supposed to have hijacked a Mercedes with its anonymous driver and allegedly forced him to withdraw $ 800 from an automatic teller. This man testified to the police that the brothers had acknowledged to him responsibility for the attack.

So far, the press has not met the suspect, or interviewed the witness. It simply relays the statements of his parents and friends who are all surprised to see the suspects involved in this case.

Anyway, Judge Marianne B. Bowler indicted Dzhokhar for "use of weapons of mass destruction", namely pressure cookers packed with nails. This is the first time the term "weapon of mass destruction" is applied to a common household appliance.

For his part, Democratic leader of the House Intelligence Committee, Dutch Ruppersberger, said, after a closed-door meeting with officials from three intelligence services, that the Tsarnaevs had used a toy remote control to detonate their two bombs. He saw this as proof that the suspects had learned to make their devices by reading Inspire, the online magazine reportedly published by "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula." However, if the first issue of the magazine (dated "Summer 2010") contains a detailed recipe for how to build a bomb from a pressure cooker, at no time does it show how to use a toy remote control to set off the explosive material inside the closed pot.

All this hubbub revolves around a single conclusion: the Chechen origin of the Tsanaev brothers places Russia at the heart of the debate. President Vladimir Putin discretely dodged questions on the subject at a long public answer session held last Thursday. There are Chechen terrorists in Syria who just kidnapped two Orthodox bishops. And it is likely there will be some in Sochi during the Olympics. It is in Russia’s interest to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States, especially if she really intends deploying troops from the Organization of Collective Security in Syria.

Meanwhile, Internet surfers are split between those who align themselves with the FBI and those who challenge its narrative. There are two major counter-arguments circulating on the Web.

The first accuses the security services of contriving a scenario with characters with emotion-charged histories. Images extracted from a video show two individuals trying to manipulate the body of Jeff Bauman, whose legs were allegedly amputated. The person in question would actually appear to be Nick Vogt, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army who lost his legs in Kandahar in November 2011. Indeed, one can only be amazed by the fact that "Jeff Bauman" always carries his head high and does not seem to suffer from hemorrhage when carried on a wheelchair without his thighs being strongly secured. The whole thing is all the more significant because it is the testimony of "Jeff Bauman," which enabled the identification of the suspects (press conference April 18, 5:20 p.m.).

The second relates to the presence of a private security team, probably from Craft International LLC, which seem to wear the same backpack that was displayed by the FBI as having contained one of the pressure cookers.

But what is most astounding lies elsewhere. A bombing drill was conducted at the Boston Marathon two hours before the tragedy at the exact location where the real bombs exploded. But when a reporter asked about this at the press conference, FBI special agent Richard Deslauriers refused to answer and sought another question.

Finally, according to Itzvestia (April 24), Tamerlane Tsarnaev participated in a Caucusus Fund for Georgia seminar, a front for the Jamestown Foundation, created by the CIA. He underwent training to "increase instability in Russia." In a protest letter, the Fund denied the reports, alleging a case of mistaken identity.

It is too early to conclude what actually happened in Boston. One thing is certain however: the police version is false.