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Washington: Investigators looking for clues to the Boston Marathon bombings
that killed three people and injured another 176 would try to
reconstruct the bombs said to be made of pressure cookers filled
with nails and ball bearings.
Fragments of nails, ball bearings and scraps of black nylon --
possibly from a backpack found at the site of the twin blasts near
the marathon finish line are being sent to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's laboratory at Quantico, Virginia, "for a complete
and thorough analysis."
One aim is to better understand how they worked; another is to
look for "identification clues" such as fingerprints, DNA or
serial numbers to help track who planted them, CNN reported citing
Boston law enforcement source.
The pieces recovered so far suggest the devices, which were
identical, could carry 6 litres of liquid apiece, officials said.
The parts found include a partial circuit board, which would be
used to detonate a device.
At a news conference in Boston Tuesday, Rick DesLauriers, the
special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office who is leading
the investigation, also asked people to report anyone who talked
about targeting Monday's race or showed interest in explosives.
He urged anyone who might have heard the sounds of explosions in
remote areas -- possibly by someone testing a bomb -- or saw
someone carrying "an unusually heavy, dark-coloured bag" around
Monday to come forward.
There has been no claim of responsibility, DesLauriers said: "The
range of suspects and motives remains wide open." And so far,
investigators have found no foreign or Al Qaeda connection to the
bombings, a US official told CNN.
President Barack Obama, who called the bombings an "act of terror"
Tuesday, will travel to Boston on Thursday to speak at an
interfaith service dedicated to the victims of Monday's bombing,
the White House announced in a statement
As cities across the United States heightened security, Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the bombings don't appear
to be harbingers of "a broader plot."
But she urged Americans "to remain vigilant and immediately report
any signs of suspicious activity to local law enforcement
officials."
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper held closed-door
talks with the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.
"There are a lot of things that are surrounding this that would
give an indication that it may have been a domestic terrorist, but
that just can't be assumed," Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top
Republican on the panel, told reporters afterwards.
Investigators are combing through shreds of evidence from what
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis called "the most complex crime
scene that we've dealt with in the history of our department."
Authorities have begun to search through huge amounts of video and
images from surveillance cameras in the area near the attack. So
far, no footage has been spotted showing someone placing the
bombs, a law enforcement source said.
The FBI is also seeking records from cell towers in the area to
isolate and trace calls from around Copley Square at the time of
the blasts.
The intelligence community is poring through all threat reporting
for any clues, US counterterrorism officials told CNN. That
includes any claims made on jihadist websites. Nothing is being
dismissed this early on.
Investigators "have a number of active leads and some good early
progress in the forensics analysis," according to a law
enforcement official cited by the channel.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in )
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