More ‘persons of interest’ in Boston probe
US: Investigators are pursuing other “persons of interest”
possibly linked to the deadly Boston Marathon bombings, US lawmakers
said Sunday.
“There are still persons of interest in the United States that the
FBI would like to have conversations with,” House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Mike Rogers told ABC’s “This Week.” The Michigan Republican
declined to indicate how many such people were on the radar of
authorities.
Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the panel, said
investigators were scouring telephone logs that took place before and
after the April 15 twin blasts that killed three people and wounded more
than 260.
Authorities have identified two brothers -- Tamerlan and Dzokhar
Tsarnaev -- as the suspects.
Tamerlan died during a shootout with police days after the attacks,
but his 19-year-old brother was captured alive and is being held at a
federal prison medical center outside Boston.
Representative Michael McCaul, head of the House Homeland Security
Committee, said the suspects likely got training from violent
extremists, considering the “level of sophistication” of the device used
for the attack.
Investigators are said to believe the Tsarnaevs’ pressure-cooker
bombs were likely detonated by long-range remote controls.
McCaul also stressed that pressure-cooker bombs were a “signature
device” used in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In addition, “the way they handled these devices and the trade craft
leads me to believe that there was a trainer,” he said on “Fox News
Sunday.”
“And the question is, where is that trainer or trainers? Are they
overseas in the Chechen region or are they in the United States?” The
lawmakers’ comments came as US media reported that Russian authorities
secretly wiretapped the mother of the brothers, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, and
recorded her discussing jihad in vague terms during a 2011 telephone
conversation with Tamerlan.
Even though the conversation took place two years ago, the Russians
only turned over the information to their US counterparts in recent
days, according to the reports.
AFP |
