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BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING I. INTRODUCTION on 15 April 2013 BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING I. INTRODUCTION On 15 April 2013 the whole world was shocked by the news of an explosion that occur in Boston. Two bombs occured near the finish line on the spectator side of the Boston Marathon. The explosion killed 3 people, who were spectator and injured many other who attended. The 3 victims who were killed and they are Krystle Campbell, the second victim was an 8 years old child name Martin Richard, and the last victim is a woman name Lu Lingzi who was a Chinese citizen. Around 134 were wounded and 15 of them were seriously injured. Citing from dailymail reports on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 which clearly stated that there were actually seven bombs planted on the occasion . However, only two of them exploded near the finish line with a gap of about 12 seconds. The location of the explosion is only 50 - 100 meters from the finish line. Officers came straight towards the location of the explosion and search for any suspicious objects . At the scene , there were a lot of bags and the equipment of the athlete marathon runner who were abandoned simply because they were rushing to save themselves . The scene was indeed very chaotic. This bombing was sudden, there were no threat before the incident and people were very much unaware that this incident was likely to happen. Therefore, according to the principle of war, this fall under the category of “surprise”. “Surprise” principle of war means, as the name suggest, a sudden attack. This means that this incident was done at a time or place or in a manner at which the other party/target is unprepared. It also deploy more rapidly than the opponent’s ability to adjust. “ Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by several cities in Greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts. It is always held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world's best-known road racing events. It is one of six World Marathon Majors.” (retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon access on 05/05/2014) What we can see in this attack is that, the bomb was dropped two times. One was drop and a few seconds later another bomb was dropped after many police and ambulance came to rescue. This is considered as a strategic to drop the bomb two times. What was the motive behind the bombing, who did this and further discussion on the “Surprise” principle of war would be discuss in this paper. II. THE MOTIVE BEHIND THE BOMBING The Suspect of the bombing was investigated to be two brothers originating from Russia but had immigrated to the United States as a refugee since 2002. They are 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev , born on October 21, 1986, and killed on April 19, 2013, and 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, born on July 22, 1993. Tamerlan was killed because of his engagement in a shootout with the police in the Boston suburb of Watertown. He also killed an MIT police officer and hijacked his car (an SUV) right after the police publicly announced that he and his brother was the suspect of the Boston Marathon Bombing. His brother, Dzhokhar Tsarneav, was injured and escaped. However, he was later found on 19 April 2013 after thousands of police came searching for him. The motive behind the bombing as interogated by the police, was that they were influenced after watching Anwar al-Awlaki lectures. Anwar al-Awlaki is known as the “Osama bin Laden of the internet” because he motivates and drive other people to be what is known as “islamic radicals”. He is also suspected to play a part in the bombing that happen in World Trade Centre in New York, US on 11 September 2001. The police later found out that both the suspect has nothing to do with the Al-Qaeda organization, however, they are considered to be an islamic extremist. “ Dzhokhar said he and his brother wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., which conducted the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan, in the view of the brothers, against Muslims. Later a CBS report revealed that a note scrawled by Dzhokhar with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding said the bombings were "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq", and called the Boston victims 'collateral damage', "in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world." According to The New York Times the portion of the boat's interior with the note would likely be cut from the hull with permission from the owner and presented in court as evidence.” (retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombings access on 05/05/2014) This means that the motive of the two brothers was apart because they wanted to take revenge on the Americans for what is happening to their muslim brother and sister around the world that has been invaded by the US military forces. However, beside this factor, there are also other factor that contributed to their motives behind the attack. Some analysist believe that Tamerlan inability to blend with the American Society may have played a part in this bombing. The result of the interogations shows that, Dzhokhar, Tamerlan’s younger brother seems to just follow his brother footsteps and was not the mastermind of this bombing. III. THE TYPE OF BOMB USE IN THIS EXPLOSION The type of bomb use in this explosion is the pressure cooker bomb. “A pressure cooker bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) created by inserting explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker. Pressure cooker bombs have been used in a number of attacks in the 21st century. Among them have been the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, 2010 Stockholm bombings (failed to explode), the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt (failed to explode), and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.” ( "A Short Recent History of Pressure Cooker Bombs". swampland. Retrieved April 16, 2013) This type of bomb is quite simple to make as the instruction of making this bomb is widespread on the internet. There are many articles with illustration and also videos on the internet showing the process on how to make this pressure cooker bomb. As mention that this pressure cooker bomb is quite common among bombings that happen in public places because the effect is very disastrous but not as big as the atomic bomb or other weapon of mass destruction. What came to mind when I read about this is that the suspect are still amateur bomber/common people, they are not part of a “dangerous” organization like Al- Qaeda. However, they have very high determination of implementing their plan, that is why this bombing happen. The bomb exploded in the spectator side, near the finish line and so the ones who become victims in this are the civillians who were watching the marathon. “The 6-liter pressure-cooker bombs were concealed in black nylon bags left on sidewalks teeming with people near the race’s finish line. The devices exploded 12 seconds apart and were detonated by electronic timers. The powerful twin blasts, set off within 100 yards of each other, sprayed a leg-level pattern a shrapnel that ripped into flesh, severed limbs and caused injuries that most doctors have never seen.” (retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/boston-marathon-bomb-devices-made-pressure- cookers-filled-nails-ball-bearings-report-article-1.1318278 on 06/05/2014) The suspect carried the bomb in a nylon bag, left it on the spectator side and left. The bomb then exploded detonated by electronic timers. The effect that this explosion has was quite severe, even though it was just a pressure cooker bomb. The strategy that the suspect had of detonating the bomb 2 times was pretty clever as it can cause more injury and the suspect knew that it would also injure those who came to rescue them IV. THE “SURPRISE” PRINCIPLE OF WAR The “surprise” principle of war focus on 2 elements : Time Perpetual Unreadiness “ Surprise results from the combination of two elements. The first is time. Surprise is a temporal phenomenon, and it makes no sense to think about surprise unless we keep it in its context of time. In my book, Fighting by Minutes: time and the art of war, I show how successful commanders throughout history have manipulated time to their advantage. Surprise occurs when one side “turns the time flank” of the other side. Just as sailing ships tried to gain and retain the weather gage in sea battles of long ago, so modern opponents must take every opportunity to use the time advantage. The other element of surprise is perpetual unreadiness. Military organizations are perpetually unready for combat. Unreadiness is the normal condition of all combatants. An army, for example, has to perform many functions other than maintaining a fighting disposition. It has to move, subsist, rest, train, prepare defenses, conduct reconnaissance, and so on. While it is performing these other activities, it is not well disposed to fight. Instead, a military organization will come to full battle readiness only when it perceives or anticipates a threat. Once the threat is apparent, the organization will try to prepare itself for battle as quickly as possible.
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