Good morning E2.
It's time to exercise my God-given American Freedom™ to speculate on some of the details of the recent Boston Marathon bombing.
There are a lot of talking heads babbling about the incident right now, but none of them to my knowledge have touched on a couple interesting tidbits, not even the "terror experts" or the "military analysts" that make the usual rounds with the big networks.
Most by now know that none of the major players in the overseas terror game have claimed responsibility, some (for example, the Tarikh-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as Pakistani Taliban) have even run away screaming in the opposite direction as credit. I won't speculate on the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators (right wing domestic! radical immigrant! greenpeace! zionist late abortion squads!) but I will discuss some of the things so far that have raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Keep in mind that I have no special plug-ins, no secret source of information; this is all based on the scant facts that have been released by the press so far, and are also colored heavily by my personal experience and judgement calls on some of the accuracy of the reporting.
First, and most worrying to me of all is, the placement and timing of the two bombs. They were set up in a classic anti-convoy configuration identical to some of the better tactics used by insurgents in Afghanistan for years.
Since the marathon proceeds along a fixed, known route, much like a convoy limited to a fixed road, it's logical that the same tactics would apply.
The initial charge was set at the finish line, the focal point for all of the runners coming up the final straightaway. The second charge at the entrance to that same final straightaway. The entrance to this final straightaway causes a bottleneck.
After the first small wave of runners passed the finish line, the first charge was blown, creating a massive distraction for the approaching runners; the intention of the attackers is to cause the runners to stop at the bottleneck, bunching up to create a better target. Runners coming up to the bottleneck also stop to see why everyone else has stopped, causing a pileup.
The military has evolved several techniques to counter this particular tactic, but they don't always work, and it's not as though the marathon runners were graced with the appropriate training.
The number of casualties seems to indicate that the technique worked as planned.
Second, certain indicators such as the shape of the blasts, the number of casualties, and the probably size of the charges, lead me to believe that the type of bombs used were not simple pipe bombs. The evidence leads me to believe that they are a type of anti-personnel IED very well known to me. They were almost certainly what are sometimes called "mini cauldrons", IEDs designed to cause a mostly directional blast of shrapnel, much like a very crude version of a claymore antipersonnel mine. They're called "mini" in comparison to their larger brothers, made of large cast iron bases that resemble, and are therefore called in several local languages, cauldrons.
Third, the photos and videos available of the actual blasts indicate that the explosive material used was a low order explosive, such as black powder or a homemade explosive (HME) like ANFO or similar. Some further thinking about ease of placement, situation, and probable physical size makes me think it was not a classic ANFO, but either commercial gunpowder or a dry ammonium nitrate mixture, probably excluding the more sophisticated types of HME, such as APAN, or Aluminum Powder Ammonium Nitrate.
ANFO really shines as an HME in larger quantities; it also has a distinct odor, usually of the fuel (typically diesel) that it's made with. Whoever placed them would have been forced to compromise. A dry ammonium nitrate mixture or a blackpowder or nitrocellulose (modern gunpowder) charge could easily have been the right size to fit into a photographer's backpack or other innocuous container that could be stashed in the appropriate places in the crowd of spectators.
All of the above indicates to me that the perpetrator, or perpetrators, are probably familiar with insurgent techniques, beyond something that a perusal of most widely available material would make feasible. The circumstances and the apparent characteristics of the bombs indicates a level of craftsmanship and sophistication to rival some of the best IEDs deployed worldwide.
The lack of a martyr tape, press release, or letters to the editor are scarier to me than if Mullah Omar was cackling all over CNN. With nobody specific to blame, I suppose they'll just have to turn the DHS lose.
Addendum: Some early reports this morning from FBI investigators confirm that they were low order explosives, and also that they were probably built using pressure cookers with additional metal shrapnel mixed in. This adds additional evidence that the bombs were indeed what I'd first thought. Used for about a decade by bombmakers in the Mid East and Southwest Asia, pressure cookers make a great housing for IEDs made with HME. By pointing the lid in the rough direction you with to spray with shrapnel, you can partially direct the blast with fragments of the lid and housing, and whatever additional shrapnel you've mixed in with the charge.
Addendum 2: FBI reports from late Tuesday indicate that the bombs were, in fact, constructed for a directional blast; were triggered with relatively sophisticated electronics; and were probably concealed inside a backpack or photographers bag (!) given the shreds of black nylon found at the scene.
A lot of people (this isn't a jab at Mr. Fish, below) seem to think I'm implying that extremist Muslims were somehow responsible. As I mentioned explicitly above, I'm not intending to do that at all. But my gut tells me that it wasn't radical Islam. No credit claiming, for one; most of the usual suspects as far as Islamic extremism are concerned have pretty heavy handed PR tactics, and there would have been a press release immediately after the successful operation.
I will be surprised if there's not a package delivered to select American media outlets within the next few days with a manifesto or declaration in it.