Suspected Boston Bomber was on Terrorist Databases
Hillary Branyik, 22, of Boston kneels at the site of the first explosion on Boylston Street, Boston. (Photo: REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi)
It’s emerged that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name had been listed in not one but two US terrorism databases.
The CIA apparently nominated Tsarnaev to one list after getting a tip from Russian intelligence.
That would have been the second Russian tip after an earlier one was sent to the FBI.
That’s leading some in Congress to ask if more could have been done to monitor Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the marathon bombings last week.
Former counter-terrorism official, Juliette Kayyem, says different agencies “stovepipe,” or hoard good information.
But she does not believe that was the issue here. “I think the issue, at least as I can tell right now, was that there wasn’t good information.”
Kayyem is keen to know what happened at the original FBI interview with Tsarnaev in 2011, and how that information was processed.