News about this new report is circulating as an exoneration of the FBI, as it is referred to explicitly in the last paragraph of this New York Times report. However, it is not really an exoneration at all. It is an attempt to displace blame for the FBI’s dropping the ball on watching Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the Boston Marathon jihad bombing from the FBI to the Russians. The problem with this attempt, however, is that while the report says that the Russians refused to give the FBI further information, it acknowledges that they told the feds that Tamerlan Tsarnaev “was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer” and that he “had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”
Those “underground groups” could in this context only have been a reference to jihad groups. And so the Russians essentially told the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a jihadi, and that wasn’t enough for the FBI to keep him under close surveillance? They didn’t pursue watching him and his brother because they hadn’t “found anything substantive that ties them to a terrorist group.” The possibility that they could have pulled off a lone wolf jihad attack apparently didn’t occur to these intel experts.
The FBI clearly failed in this case and bears some responsibility for the Boston bombing, but ultimately the responsibility lies with Barack Obama and John Brennan, who made sure that agents would be abysmally ignorant of Islam and jihad when they scrubbed all mention of both from counterterror training — so how could the FBI properly evaluate what the Russians told them?
“Russia Didn’t Share All Details on Boston Bombing Suspect, Report Says,” by Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt for the New York Times, April 9:
WASHINGTON — The Russian government declined to provide the F.B.I. with information about one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects that would most likely have led to more extensive scrutiny of him at least two years before the attack, according to an inspector general’s report.
Russian officials had told the F.B.I. in 2011 that the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, “was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer” and that Mr. Tsarnaev “had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”
But after an initial investigation by the F.B.I., the Russians declined several requests for additional information about Mr. Tsarnaev, according to the report, a review of how intelligence and law enforcement agencies could have thwarted the bombing.
At the time, American law enforcement officials believed that Mr. Tsarnaev posed a far greater threat to Russia.
The new inspector general’s report found that it was only after the bombing occurred last April that the Russians shared with the F.B.I. the additional intelligence, including information from a telephone conversation the Russian authorities had intercepted between Mr. Tsarnaev and his mother in which they discussed Islamic jihad.
“They found that the Russians did not provide all the information that they had on him back then, and based on everything that was available the F.B.I. did all that it could,” said a senior American official briefed on the review.
Mr. Tsarnaev, who was killed attempting to elude the police, and his brother, Dzhokhar, are believed to be the sole suspects in the attack, which killed three people and injured more than 200 near the marathon’s finish line. The Justice Department said in January that it would seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Federal authorities have uncovered little evidence tying the brothers to an international terrorist organization. F.B.I. agents who traveled to Dagestan, a region in Russia’s North Caucasus where Tamerlan Tsarnaev went in 2012 during a particularly violent period there, found nothing that showed he received training or encouragement from terrorists.
“At this point it looks like they were homegrown violent extremists,” the senior official said. “We certainly aren’t in a position to rule anything out, but at this point we haven’t found anything substantive that ties them to a terrorist group.”
The report was produced by the inspector general of the Intelligence Community, which has responsibility for 17 separate agencies, and the inspectors general from the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. It has not been made public, but members of Congress are scheduled to be briefed on it Thursday, and some of its findings are expected to be released before Tuesday, the first anniversary of the bombings.
Its contents were described by several senior American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been publicly released.
The review is similar to an internal review the F.B.I. conducted after the bombing. In that review, the bureau found that its agents had been restrained from conducting a more extensive investigation because of federal laws and Justice Department guidelines that prevent them from using surveillance tools like wiretapping in investigations like those conducted on Mr. Tsarnaev before the bombings.
“Had they known what the Russians knew they probably would have been able to do more under our investigative guidelines, but would they have uncovered the plot? That’s very hard to say,” one senior official said.
While the review largely exonerates the F.B.I., it does say that agents in the Boston area who investigated the Russian intelligence in 2011 could have conducted a few more interviews when they first examined the information.
The report also recommends several steps it says the F.B.I. should take to more effectively share information with state and local authorities, the officials said. The F.B.I., which has worked with police chiefs from around the country over the past year on how it can better share information, has already adopted several of the recommendations, according to the officials.
When the F.B.I. disclosed shortly after the bombing that it had received information from the Russians, congressional Republicans and a few Democrats, including Representative William Keating of Massachusetts, criticized the bureau for not continuing to track him when he left to visit Dagestan and for not questioning him on his return in 2012.
“It’s people like this that you don’t want to let out of your sight, and this was a mistake,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “I don’t know if our laws were inefficient or if the F.B.I. failed, but we’re at war with radical Islamists, and we need to up our game.”
As part of its investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011, F.B.I. agents examined his criminal and educational records and his Internet search history. They also interviewed him, his parents and people at his school. It was after those investigative efforts uncovered little that F.B.I. agents stationed in Moscow went back to the Russian authorities and requested any additional information they had on Mr. Tsarnaev, who immigrated to the United States from Dagestan a little more than a decade ago.
The exoneration of the F.B.I. stands in contrast to the findings of a similar investigation conducted after the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., in which 13 people were killed. After the shooting, a former bureau director, William H. Webster, conducted a formal review of the investigation into the gunman, Nidal Malik Hasan, before and after the attack. That review said the F.B.I. had mishandled information garnered from intelligence, and it led to changes in the way the agency shares information.
RonaldB says
J Edgar Hoover must be spinning in his grave. The once-proud FBI is claiming exoneration because Russian intelligence declined to do all the work for the FBI, refusing to share the details of surveillance which could have compromised Russian domestic security.
Hoover had tenure and was pretty much untouchable as FBI director. While this had some potential for abuse, it also ensured that the administration had to think twice before hamstringing the FBI practices. Now, any FBI directorship is completely dependent on the President, and it is too much to hope for that an FBI official would publicly come out and state that the constraints on their activities are a danger to national security.
In fact, I doubt if anyone willing to act independently in any way would have any hope of FBI leadership. It is quite possible that the advanced inflexibility of our increasingly-bureaucratic government will provide a fatal gateway to the enemies of our country and our society.
duh_swami says
but we’re at war with radical Islamists, and we need to up our game.”
They just can’t help playing the ‘radical game’. There are not two Islam’s, one ‘radical’ the other not. There is only one Islam…Islam.
RCCA says
Someone is going to have to find another word for “radical Islamists” to avoid offending Muslims. It would have to be something like “misguided Islam-based militants” (MIM’s) or “misunderstanders of the religion of peace”(MRP’s).
I like MRP’s.
veggiedog says
I think we have to worry more about offending those in power. I don ‘t care if we offend Muslims with the truth.
Beagle says
The FSB is going to have to work much harder to protect the US given the politically-correct blinders which obscure Islam and jihad in the US government under Obama.
This would be funny if it did not involve death and maiming: the Russians should have done a better job protecting the US from terror. Let that sink in a minute. “Dog ate my homework” is far superior.
Tradewinds says
There’s no difference between Islam and “radical” Islam.
Defcon 4 says
Here, here. Someone should inform Pipes — this is, if he’s not playing for the other side.
Angemon says
“The Russian government declined to provide the F.B.I. with information about one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects”
Wait, what? Russia was supposed to give the FBI all they had on Tsarnaev? Since when are intelligence agencies supposed to divulge their sources and hand over their resources to foreign agencies? Russia told the US that Tsarnaev was a jihadi, the FBI couldn’t tell the difference between a jihadi and a smoking crater in the ground. Why is Russia getting blamed for the Boston bombings?
Seriously, i can imagine the conversation between the FBI and the Russian Authorities going something like this:
RA: – Greetings, comrade capitalist pig FBI.
FBI: – Wassup commie? What do you want?
RA: – As a token of good faith, I want to inform you about these two jihadis that are entering your nation. They’re dangerous individuals who are going to meet with terrorist organizations within your country.
FBI: – Ji-what now? What the hell are you talking about?
RA: – Who are you, comrade question? Those two are dangerous individuals, keep an eye on them. That’s all you need to know.
FBI: – Yeah, i’ve been looking them up as we speak. They’re Chechen with links to separatist groups. This is the US, they have nothing against us, we’ll be fine. But thanks for the tip, comrade.
Walter Sieruk says
One of the many deadly and murderous places in the Quran that instructs violence and killing is in Sura 47: 4. Which teaches “Whenever you encounter the unbelievers strike of their heads until you make a great slaughter among them….” A bomb or two can sure make a greater “slaughter among them” then a sword can. It many be of some interest that I looked up that verse and it read as above . That Quran was, of course, in English . The Quran was also printed well before September 11, 2001. Just last year a Muslim gave my friend an English copy of the Quran printed some years after 9/11 and I Looked up that same verse that verse had been changed very much to look very peaceful. This is clearly and attempt to cover up the reality of the truth about this deadly religion which is Islam.
Michael Copeland says
The FBI, whose “agents in the Boston area who investigated the Russian intelligence in 2011 could have conducted a few more interviews”, did not inform Boston police. The police could have more closely watched the “Grab on to the gun” Boston mosque. Whatever way it is looked at this is failure.
See “A Triple Unsolved Murder: Unconnected Dots”
http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/5778-a-triple-unsolved-murder-unconnected-dots
Defcon 4 says
I get the feeling this triple murder isn’t unsolvable, it’s deliberately not being solved.
Michael Copeland says
The late Chechnyan tough Ibrahim Todashev, shot by FBI when he attacked them in his apartment, had already confessed that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had committed the killings. Telephone records tie both Tsarnaev brothers to the locality, and DNA to the scene. Probably all other details are being kept private until the trial of Dzokhar Tsarnaev. These last two details could have been ascertained by Boston police at the time: more failure, and it is not Russia’s fault.
Michael Copeland says
Initial reports said the victims had been “stabbed in the neck”. Here is further information from May 2013.
‘Their throats had been slashed with such force that their heads were nearly decapitated. A veteran Waltham investigator called it “the worst bloodbath I have ever seen,” and compared the victims’ wounds to “an Al-Qaeda training video.” About a pound and a half of high-grade marijuana covered two of the corpses. Rafi Teken’s face was left untouched. Erik Weissman had a bloody lip. But Brendan Mess, an experienced mixed martial artist who trained in jujitsu, had real fighting wounds. His arms were covered in scratch marks. He had puncture marks on his temple and the top of his head, another mark by his ear, and he was bruised around the lips. It didn’t scan like a robbery: There were eight and a half pounds of pot left in bags and glass jars, and $5,000 dollars left on the bodies—enough for a cheap funeral, for one of them.” ‘
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/02/25/waltham-murders-boston-marathon/
Boston police did not make adequate further investigations. This was hardly a drug deal gone wrong.
Unapologetic American says
We ALL know the mainstream Liberal-biased media is protecting the Marshall-Davis/Soetoro/Obama mis-administration, covering up for the FBI and Commissar Eric “The Red Menace” Holder’s bungling of the Boston Bombers (Brothers of Barack) investigation of the attack at the marathon. Now we see the New York Slimes pointing fingers at Russia, yes Russia who warned us in advance of the Tsarnev pairs intentions. One might ask “why demonize Putin and Russia” well it’s because Putin has made a fool (as if it’s difficult) of our pathetic Pretender and Putz over his failed U.S. taxpayer-financed, NGO-orchestrated Arab Spring-type (fake) revolution in Ukraine.
Putin strong like Russian bear.
Obama weak like mouse.
mortimer says
Time for the FBI to recall Robert Spencer to teach their agents to spot a jihadist.
jon says
I rather have Col Dooley (sacked for speaking the true nature of islam) to teach both FBI and CIA about ‘peaceful islam’
Defcon 4 says
“Radical” islam being what? Normative pisslam?
j_not_a says
“The FBI clearly failed in this case and bears some responsibility for the Boston bombing, but ultimately the responsibility lies with Barack Obama and John Brennan, who made sure that agents would be abysmally ignorant of Islam and jihad when they scrubbed all mention of both from counterterror training — so how could the FBI properly evaluate what the Russians told them?”
I got banned from Yahoo comment board and my Yahoo email account got cancelled when I posted this information and quoted from koranic verses among pointing out other facts about islam after getting a “warning” email from yahoo administrators that I was posting “offensive” material on their boards. They are hopeless.
Michael Copeland says
Instructions to kill are “offensive material”.
Islofob IS-1 says
F.B.I. ;
Our country and way of life is under threat, we can only allow so many mistakes in the cause of protection of the great Republic of the United States.
We are fast out of mistakes.
Do not fail again, the next time may be fatal. The threat from islam is real, every S.O.A. is not having his business cards printed to give the game away, or boasting on Facebook.
Study islam, read about islam, understand the death cult, listen to who has been right in the warnings . The answers are there, use them.
Those answers may find J.W., and many others, to be the real deal, and islam itself the enemy , its really very clear.
The truth may not be what you want to hear, but it will be what you find.