Boston Bombing Suspect in Serious Condition; Raises Fear of 'Future Face' of US Terrorism
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is reportedly in serious condition as he remains hospitalized in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston – the same hospital where his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev died Friday from wounds. As the younger Tsarnaev faces possible federal terrorism charges as soon as today, intelligence experts are raising question if the Tsarnaev brothers are the "future face" of terrorism in the U.S.
Authorities are keeping a clampdown on details of Tsarnaev's exact condition, barring hospital staff from speaking to the media. But a hospital spokesperson confirmed Saturday morning that the Boston bombing suspect was alive after being found hiding in a boat in a Watertown resident's backyard. He was profusely bleeding, but it is unclear if the injuries are from Thursday's confrontation with authorities, when his brother was captured, or if he was shot by police on Friday evening.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught and arrested about 8:40 p.m. ET on Friday night after nearly a two hour stand-off with police in Watertown, Mass. Dzhokhar and his brother are the main suspects for the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, that killed three people, including an 8-year-old child, and left more than 170 injured.
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CNN reports that a Justice Department official informed the news station that Tsarnaev could face arraignment in court as soon as Saturday. So far, Tsarnaev has not been read his Miranda rights, according to CNN, a U.S. law where police must inform arrested criminal suspects that they have the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer. The reason could be that authorities are viewing the bombing suspect as an "enemy combatant" or applying the public safety exception.
The Tsarnaev brothers are ethnic Chechens who have been living in the U.S. for about 10 years. The FBI revealed that the older Tamerlan was questioned at the request of the Russian government in 2011 over concerns that he was involved with terrorist groups connected to the Chechen separatist movement. The FBI interrogated Tsarnaev and investigated his background but did not find anything out of the ordinary and has not been in contact with him until this week's bombings.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's YouTube page featured jihadi videos, and a video of Abd al-Hamid al-Juhani, an assistant to an al Qaida scholar in Chechnya. Currently, police are still investigating and have not drawn any conclusion about whether the Tsarnaev brothers are connected to any foreign terrorist groups, including al Qaida.
But their surprise attacks on everyday American citizens raise fear that this could be the new and difficult to manage face of terrorism.
"We are likely to see this as the future face of terrorist threats to the United States," said Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, to WSJ. Riedel said that radicalized small groups of individuals living in the U.S. carrying out attacks are "the counterterrorist community's worst nightmare, homegrown, self-radicalizing terrorism that learns its skill set off the Internet."
Authorities are still looking into a 6-month period in early 2012 where the elder Tsarnaev traveled to Russia for unknown reason.
