Report Warned About Marathon Finish Line

Cited threat of 'small-scale bombings'
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted May 10, 2013 3:22 AM CDT
Report Warned About Marathon Finish Line
People pause to look at a makeshift memorial near the Boston Marathon finish line in Boston's Copley Square Tuesday, May 7, 2013 in remembrance of the Boston Marathon bombings.   (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

An 18-page report that emerged days before the Boston Marathon proved chillingly accurate in its warning: It said the race's finish line was an "area of increased vulnerability," noting a threat of "small-scale bombings" by extremists, the Los Angeles Times reports. But the report, from the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, which receives Department of Homeland Security funding, said there was "no credible, specific information indicating an imminent threat." Yesterday, Boston's police chief said the FBI hadn't informed police about any concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Meanwhile, Russian locals tell the New York Times that Tsarnaev was already invested in jihad when he arrived in the country for a visit. Russian investigators on Sunday questioned Tsarnaev's cousin, himself a Salafi Islamist leader, asking if he had foisted his extremist views upon Tsarnaev. The cousin said Tsarnaev was the one pushing militancy—even as the cousin argued against it, locals noted. Indeed, in Dagestan, Tsarnaev sported oiled hair and eye makeup associated with jihadists, a friend tells the Wall Street Journal. "He was not radicalized here; there was no big change in his mentality," said the friend. "He left here the same as he came." (More Boston Marathon bombing stories.)

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