The Boston Marathon Bombing took place on April the 15 th 2013, at 2.50 pm and has since provided a lot of insight on current response and intelligence systems in times of crisis. The incident involved the detonation of two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the race and was detonated 14 seconds apart and were 210 yards apart. Three people died instantly, and over 200 others were injured. The survivors had head injuries, hearing losses, and severed limbs as a direct result of the blast, and at least 14 of them required amputations.
Intelligence had provided prior warning of the suspects being radical even though the case was not regarded as a high priority. One of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was under the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) radar on two occasions before the Russian government also issued their warning in March 2011. The Bureau may have dismissed the assessment of the suspect prematurely even though the two prior mentions were not related to terrorism. The intelligence provided by Russia coupled up with previous mentions of the same suspects prompted all the record checks required of such a case, including interviews of known associates and family and the suspect himself. The information was sent back to Russia, and inquiries made to prove he was a terrorist from Russia, but there was no response. This meant there was no legal basis to continue with investigations ( Sutton et al., 2016) .
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Various law enforcement agencies worked together on this case, including Russian intelligence, albeit not as effective as it should have been. The authorities missed several chances to detain him as he traveled to and from Dagestan for terror training. For instance, he was supposed to be detained for questioning at JFK airport as he was considered armed and dangerous, but he managed to slip through their fingers as someone had misspelled his last name in a security database. The Federal Security Service (FSB) sent a message with their concerns about the Tsarnaev family, who were residents of America at the time. It was a detailed letter containing contact information with addresses and phone numbers for most of the family members. The letter warned that he was associated with violent and radical Islamists, including William Plotnikov, a Canadian Muslim, who was killed in Dagestan. The FBI launched an investigation into Tamerlan by members of the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force, an interagency team comprising of federal, state, and local law enforcement members ( Büscher, Liegl, Thomas, 2014) .
He was personally interviewed by an FBI agent of the task force, but there was no surveillance as the threat did not warrant for one. A member of the taskforce then issued a memo into customs and border patrol database (TECS), which would trigger an alert on the hotlist anytime the suspect left or re-entered the United States. The investigation was closed in June 2011 as the assessment claimed no links to terrorism in the report issued. September 11 th , the same year in Waltham, three victims with their throats sliced were found with marijuana on their bodies. One of the victims was Tamerlan’s long-time sparring partner, but the case was classified as drug-related.
Nearly two years after the Boston bombing, Ibragim Todashev, an associate of Tamerlan’s, was interviewed about the Waltham murders. He was shot and killed during the interview after he allegedly attacked an agent as he was about to implicate both him and Tamerlan. The authorities never made any arrests in the Waltham, and Tsarnaev was also never questioned. Six months after the FSB had sent their first cable, they sent a follow up to the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA), reinstating the warnings of the first letter. There is no record of the FBI reopening the case or doing further investigations after the CIA received its version of the message. In October the same year, the CIA shared intelligence with several intelligence agencies like the National Counterterrorism Center(NCTC), DHS, The State Department, and the FBI. They nominated Tsarnaev for inclusion on the watchlist on Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment(TIDE), which a central source for watch lists like TESC. This second entry, however, had a spelling error, with the extra letter y in his last name as “Tsarnayev” warning that he was armed and dangerous and should have mandatory detention upon leave or re-entry of the country.
He left for Moscow in an Aeroflot at JFK on January 21 st, 2012, and an alert was triggered, but he was not pulled out for a secondary interview. This was mostly because of the number of people on the watch list, thus regarding him a low priority. He later traveled to Dagestan and received jihad training for six months and flew back on July 17 th, the same year. The earlier TECS notes that flagged his departure had expired, and the second one had his name wrong and thus wasn’t triggered upon re-entry into the country. The small oversights and mistakes of the agencies costed the lives of the Boston bombing, not to mention the unfriendly relations between the agencies and the withholding of information. Not to mention the way the intelligence from Russia was not accorded the seriousness it deserved owing to the nature of Russia having a possible ulterior motive. The coordination was not as effective as it should have been, and there was no follow up on TIDE suspects flagged mainly owing to resources. This also affected the effectiveness of analyzing all the flagged criminals at the time, which, although was thorough, had no follow up to render suspects harmless completely.
A couple of things worked in favor of the investigation, including intelligence from the Russians that prompted an investigation. Also, the extensive study was done into the suspect within the parameters offered by the law and the taskforce and interagency cooperation on the same. There hadn’t been a successful attack on US soil since 9/11 until the Boston Bombings. The 9/11 attack had encouraged horizontal information sharing within law enforcement agencies, and this attack was a learning opportunity about sharing information vertically. There was a need to be more open about intelligence and the critical role of oversight and accountability to solve cases much more efficiently.
Some lessons to be learned from the incident mostly are angled towards information sharing. Both state and local law enforcement should have separate units for counter-terrorism and intelligence agencies within local departments and the state. These task forces should be dedicated to investigating and tackling terrorist attacks in their cities. This, owing to the fact that the federal government shouldn’t be the only line of defense for all the communities in the country. They should be trained in critical thinking, assessment of information, and its validity, protect witness privacy, and be sharp in flagging warning signals. These officers can use their positions to report any potential terror threats to their communities. Potential hindrances to this would be resources and time that would be channeled to keep these state agencies afloat ( Gates et al., 2014) .
Incentives should be provided for federal agencies to share information vertically to state and local agencies, and horizontally to other federal agencies. An information-sharing culture should be encouraged across agencies through their senior officials. It should be inclusive of methods and procedures that discourage the desire to hoard information such as cash rewards, promotions, and welcome reassignments. Agencies should establish a strategy to enhance coordination and develop trusted relationships between agencies and local law enforcement. Better training within agencies also on data analysis and witness protection should be encouraged to minimize incidences of oversight or infringement of people’s privacy.
The bombings reminded Americans and policymakers of the dangers of not sharing information. Federal agencies failed to share information due to violation of principles set after 9/11 rather than legal constraints. This proved the initiatives passed after 9/11 were not compelling enough to share information horizontally nor vertically. A sharing culture would be wise to avert future threats on American soil, and the agencies would be prudent to encourage this culture.
References .
Büscher, M., Liegl, M., & Thomas, V. (2014). Collective intelligence in crises. In Social Collective Intelligence (pp. 243-265). Springer, Cham.
Gates, J. D., Arabian, S., Biddinger, P., Blansfield, J., Burke, P., Chung, S., ... & Gupta, A. (2014).
The initial response to the Boston marathon bombing: lessons learned to prepare for the next disaster. Annals of surgery , 260 (6), 960.
Sutton, J., Gibson, C. B., Spiro, E. S., League, C., Fitzhugh, S. M., & Butts, C. T. (2016). What it takes to get passed on: message content, style, and structure as predictors of retransmission in the Boston Marathon bombing response. In Effective Communication During Disasters (pp. 217-248). Apple Academic Press.
