Bloomberg: Boston Bombing Suspects Targeted NYC

by VOA News April 25, 2013

New York's mayor says the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were also targeting his city, aiming for an attack on Times Square.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday that the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told investigators that he and his older brother, Tamerlan, planned to drive to New York to set off more explosives. But the New York plan was thwarted within days of the April 15 Boston explosions as Tamerlan died after a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was captured a day later.

'The fact is New York City remains a prime target for those who hate America and want to kill Americans,' said Bloomberg, whose city was ground zero in the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Suspects' Parents Speak

In Russia, parents of the Tsarnaev brothers said their sons did not carry out the April 15 Boston attack, which killed three people and injured more than 250 others.

​​Their mother accused U.S. authorities of needlessly killing Tamerlan. In a news conference in Makhachkala, both parents — Anzor Tsarnaev and his former wife Zubeidat — said their sons were framed.

While Tamerlan died in an April 19 shootout with police at age 26, his 19-year-old brother now faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a possible death sentence if he is convicted.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva angrily claimed police did not have to kill Tamerlan.

'What have you done with my son? He was alive,' she said. 'Why did they need to kill him? Why didn't they send him to, you know, Guantanamo or wherever? Why did they kill him? Why? Why did they have to kill him? They got him alive, right? He was in their hands.'

According to reports by numerous news agencies, Tamerlan died as a result of injuries sustained in the early-morning shootout with police, during which, investigators say, he was run over by vehicle operated by his younger brother as he lay wounded.

Zubeidat said she would not accept that her sons had planted the bombs.

Anzor Tsarnaev said he plans to return to the United States in the coming days to bury Tamerlan and hopefully see Dzhokhar, now held by authorities in a Boston hospital.

Intel Probe

U.S. officials are continuing to examine whether the Boston Marathon attack could have been prevented, as warning signs emerged that Tamerlan was turning toward radical Islamic beliefs.

Senator Lindsey Graham said he believes Boston is becoming 'a case study in system failure' by U.S. intelligence agencies.

"We need to understand that bin Laden may be dead, but the war against radical Islam is very much alive,' he said. 'Radical Islam is on the march and we need to up our game."

Authorities say Tamerlan was placed on a U.S. counter-terrorism list in late 2011, when the CIA asked that his name be placed on the list after it was contacted by the Russian government with regarding concerns that he had become ideologically radicalized.

Moscow also issued a similar warning to the FBI earlier in 2011. Officials say the agency launched an investigation, but eventually concluded he posed no threat.

U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about information sharing between U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon attack. Authorities will brief the full U.S. Senate on the investigation into the bombing.

In January 2012, several months after he first came to the attention of U.S. federal agents, Tamerlan left the U.S. for a six-month visit to Russia.

U.S. investigators questioned the suspects' parents in the Russian republic of Dagestan to try to determine if Tamerlan had contacts with Islamic extremists.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.