Home › news › Is this the second Boston bomb just seconds before it exploded? Dramatic new images show a bag discarded at spectators’ feet as FBI crime scene pictures reveal deadly shrapnel suggesting first device WAS a pressure cooker

Is this the second Boston bomb just seconds before it exploded? Dramatic new images show a bag discarded at spectators’ feet as FBI crime scene pictures reveal deadly shrapnel suggesting first device WAS a pressure cooker

By C. J. Refsland on April 16, 2013 • ( 1 )

By Daily Mail

New crime scene photographs of the remnants of the first bomb which detonated during Monday’s Boston marathon appear to confirm that a pressure cooker was used in at least one of the deadly devices.

The exclusive images obtained by Fox 5 Atlanta show what they claim are pieces of a stainless steel pressure cooker with an Underwriters Laboratory safety mark and an imprint that reads gas or electric.

Another photograph from the scene of the terror attack which killed three people and injured 183 shows a shredded black, padded back-pack or duffel bag that would confirm numerous reports that the bomb was indeed carried in a black bag.

Earlier in the day, lead FBI agent Richard DesLauriers confirmed that items from the first blast have been recovered and are being sent to a special facility at FBI headquarters in Quantico for study – in the hope that they will lead them to the killer or killers.

He said among those items were ‘pieces of black nylon which could be from a backpack and fragments of BBs (pellets) and nails possibly contained in a pressure cooker device.

‘The bag would have been heavy because of the components believed to be in it. We won’t know with certainty until the laboratory completes its final review.’

Bomb: The FOX 5 I-Team show pieces of a stainless steel pressure cooker with an Underwriters Laboratory number. One picture shows the imprint: Gas and Electric

The devices are believed to be pressure cooker bombs – explosives typically are placed inside a pressure cooker — a commonplace cooking utensil in many countries — and the device is then detonated using everyday electronic equipment such as digital watches, garage door openers, cellphones or pagers

This picture obtained by Fox 5 Atlanta is believed to be the black back-pack that is thought to have held one of the explosive devices which detonated at the finishing line of the Boston Marathon on Monday

This picture reportedly shows the damaged remains of a circuit board – which could indicate how the device was triggered to detonate on Monday at the finishing line of the Boston marathon

Investigation: Officials survey the site of a bomb blast on Boylston Street in Boston searching for evidence that might help them find a suspect or suspects

And earlier this evening, new photographs submitted to the FBI reveal the scene before and after the second deadly bomb detonated at the finishing line of the Boston marathon – as it emerged that bomb detection units had swept the area twice before the race began.

Visible in the first picture is an orange and grey bag that can be clearly seen on the other side of barriers set up on the sidewalk sitting next to a mailbox as spectators behind cheer on the tired runners.

In the second picture, blurred because of the graphic scenes, the bag has disappeared in the aftermath of the bomb detonating to be replaced by a scene of utter carnage.

The viewer who took the pictures and submitted them to 7News in Boston says there may have been an hour or more between the first and second picture being taken.

Investigators believe the explosives – were in six-liter pressure cookers with gunpowder and set off by an electronic timer.

And in video footage also handed over to the FBI, an unidentified man is seen to flee the scene of one of the blasts as everyone else cowers in the seconds after the explosions.

Dressed all in black, the man’s pants have been shredded and he hurriedly looks from left to right before making off in the opposite direction to the where members of the public are aiding the injured.

In a press conference held today, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis confirmed that the marathon route had been swept twice by bomb detection units and declared clear.

‘[But] people can come and go and bring items in and out” after the races started,’ said Davis.

Photos sent to 7News by a viewer show the scene just before and right after the bombs went off on Boylston Street. In the first picture you can see a bag next to a mailbox and up against a barricade along the marathon route. In the second (right) which is blurred because it is graphic, there is no sign of the bag

While everyone seems to instinctively cower – the man dressed in black and highlighted – appears to run away at speed from the scene in the opposite direction to everyone else who was caught up in the blast

As members of the public and those caught up in the blast appear to help the stricken victims of the bombing – the man in black can be seen to make his way at speed away from the scene

And as the circumstantial evidence builds up around the devastating attacks builds, one counterterrorism expert told said that the Boston bombings bore all the hallmarks of the 2004 Madrid attacks – albeit on a lesser scale.

‘This has the hallmarks of a Madrid-style event in many respects,’ Rossini told The Daily Beast. ‘We don’t know who the bombers are, but I assume it was more than one. It’s just my gut that there might have been two people involved.’

The Madrid commuter train bombings were a coordinated attack that used multiple explosive devices which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 on March 11th, 2004.

They were attributed to an al-Qaeda affiliated terror cell.

‘I’m not sure if it’s domestic, or if there was shrapnel or ball bearings in the bombs,’ Rossini said,

‘But when I saw a still photo of the explosion, there was what looked like a fireball from an accelerant like a propane tank or gasoline”—yet another similarity to the carnage in Spain.

‘Of course, a pipe bomb could have that effect as well.’

Saying that the bomber or bombers most likely dropped the bags easily during the commotion during the race, Rossini said that the FBI will be looking to the remnants of the bags to lead them to the killers.

Rossini, however, cautioned against jumping to any conclusions that the bombing was the result of Islamic-inspired terrorism. ‘It could be a white supremacist group. We just don’t know.’

People gather for a vigil for the victims on the Boston Common as an investigation continues into dual bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line in Boston, Massachusetts, on Tuesday

A member of the National Guard and a Boston policeman direct a man away from a barricade near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Boston on Tuesday

People stand during an interfaith prayer service remembering the victims of Boston Marathon bombings at the Paulist Center on Tuesday evening in Boston, Massachusetts

The two bombs that killed three people and injured at least 183 at the Boston Marathon on Monday were made from six-liter pressure cookers crammed with shards of metal, nails and ball bearings and stashed in black backpacks, police sources revealed today.

The cruelly-designed bombs have ‘frequently’ been used in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, according to a 2010 Homeland Security Department pamphlet – hinting at the origins of the bombers behind the worst terrorist atrocity in the U.S. since 9/11.

A history of pressure cooker bombs and IEDS since the 1990s: How the crude device popular with al-Qaeda and the Taliban has traveled to the United States

First reports of pressure cookers being used as bombs date back to the 1990s when Maoist rebels used them during the Nepalese civil war that began in 1996.
During the early part of the last decade, pressure cooker devices were being used in the creation of IEDs across Afghanistan and Pakistan – and were used with alarming frequency against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
However, because pressure cookers are not as common in the United States as other developing nations, the Department of Homeland Security issued a 2010 warning to report seeing any in public places unattended.
The 2010 warning was released several months after the failed May 2010 Times Square bombing – which used one as part of its mechanism.
In 2011 U.S. Army Private Naser Jason Abdo was charged in plotting to set off a pressure cooker bomb on Fort Hood, Texas
He reportedly learned how to construct the device from reading al Qaeda’s online magazine, Inspire

When the devices exploded near the crowded Boston Marathon finish line around 2.50pm on Monday, victims suffered as many as 40 shrapnel wounds each and at least 10 people needed amputations. Witnesses described seeing body parts flying through the air and shoes that ‘still had flesh in them’.

And today, FBI investigators said that they will attempt to reconstruct the deadly bombs that brought havoc to the streets of Boston.

During the day, Federal law enforcement sources have briefed that the two devices were indeed made from pressure cookers and hidden in back-packs.

The recovered pieces suggest that the two bombs were identical and a Boston law enforcement source said that parts of a circuit board were also found – which could have been the method to detonate the devices.

As the evidence strands are brought together, experts have said that despite pressure cooker bombs being used as IEDs by the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, it doesn’t mean that other people can not discover how to create them.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility and DesLauriers said, ‘The range of suspects and motives remains wide open.’

In Washington, Senator Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN that the facts point to a domestic, home-grown source.

‘There are a lot of things that are surrounding this that would give an indication that it may have been a domestic terrorist, but that just can’t be assumed,’ Chambliss said.

On Tuesday afternoon, a second victim killed in the blasts was identified as 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, from Arlington, Massachusetts. It comes after another was named as eight-year-old Martin Richard. The third victim has not yet been named.

The bombs used to kill and maim are believed to have contained black powder or gunpowder as the explosive, and information on how to make such a bomb is available on the internet, experts said. The devices were then left at the scene to look like discarded property, CBS News reported.

Investigators have also found pieces of an electronic circuit board which could indicate a timer was used in the detonation.

Although no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, similar devices were used in the failed 2010 attempt to bomb Times Square by Faisal Shahzad, who admitted he had undergone bomb-making training at a militant Islamist faction camp in Pakistan.

A pressure-cooker bomb is also a preferred weapon of al-Qaeda and listed as the ‘most effective’ weapon of jihad, according to an English-language terror magazine called Inspire, in an article entitled ‘How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom’.

Another article in Inspire last year listed ‘the most important enemy targets’ for jihadists in America – and included sporting events, CNSNews noted.

The aim should be to target ‘human crowds in order to inflict maximum human losses,’ a terrorist known as Abu Musab al-Suri wrote. ‘This is very easy since there are numerous such targets such as crowded sports arenas, annual social events, large international exhibitions… etc.’

Collecting evidence: Two men in hazardous materials suits put numbers on the shattered glass and debris as they investigate the scene at the first bombing on Boylston Street

Bomb: Images from a Homeland Security Department pamphlet shows a diagram for rudimentary improvised explosive devices using pressure cookers. Police sources have revealed that the device used in the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday used pressure cookers filled with shrapnel and ball bearings