US Officials Lack Any Leads on Boston Bombings

'The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,' FBI officials say
Obama receives a briefing on the attack from DHS, FBI, and Counter-terrorism officials.
Obama receives a briefing on the attack from DHS, FBI, and Counter-terrorism officials.

US officials are scrambling almost two days after a grisly terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon without a single lead on the perpetrator and no claims of responsibility.

“At this time there are no claims of responsibility,” FBI officials said in a press conference Tuesday. “The range of suspects and motives remains wide open.”

Since the attack, in which two bombs exploded near the finish line of Boston’s celebrated marathon, killing three and maiming more than 170, questions about whether the perpetrators are foreign or domestic have gone unanswered.

“Officials have determined the bombs were placed in a black nylon bag or backpack,” Fox News reported. “Pieces of the bag recovered have been sent to a FBI lab for forensic testing.”

Early on, there were reports of a Saudi national having been injured nearby the bombs and held for questioning while at the hospital. The man’s apartment in Revere was searched.

After initially refusing to address it, authorities finally conceded there was no evidence of any complicity in the attack. The man’s race, and that alone, was probably the cause for suspicion.

“The Pakistani Taliban, which has threatened attacks in the United States because of its support for the Pakistani government, denied any role in the marathon bombings Tuesday,” according to Fox News.

The foreign terrorist organizations at the center of Washington’s expansive ‘war on terror’ have explicit agendas and have been quick to claim responsibility for previous attempted attacks, eager to draw attention to their cause.

The lack of any claim of responsibility may indicate domestically based perpetrators, or possibly a lone actor. But such speculations are premature at a point when no evidence of culpability has been found or made public.

If it is found out that the attack was foreign in nature, the consequences will be much graver in the realm of foreign and national security policy.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.