Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby Project Willow » Thu Apr 25, 2013 1:02 am

brainpanhandler wrote:Why not start planning for the post apocalypse now?


Yeah, I know. Everyday I engage in habits that will hasten my death. Gotta do my bit.

A question that sometimes pops up in my mind, when we enter full on martial law, will they take the opportunity to mow down us slaves? Perhaps it will matter even less then and we'll be rounded up with everyone else.

Humans are as predictably horrible as they've always been, to each other, and the planet. I just feel bad for the small portion of potential good and potential joy that is lost, and the kids, as cliche as that may sound. If there's an afterlife, and they try to send me back as a human, Ima gonna blow up the universe.
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby 8bitagent » Thu Apr 25, 2013 1:02 am

Karmamatterz wrote:Drone manufacturers have got to have the biggest hard-ons right now drooling over the prospect of private presentations to the Boston PD. But nah, that's not fascist at all, that is too harsh. Fascism isn't something all of us are ready to embrace (yet, but you will be after a few more nudges), or are scared shitless to admit it's shadow is present and unfortunately grows with every incident like this. Drone sales, infrared cameras, armored vehicles, snooping technology are just good ol' capitalism. Embrace it, then go to Disney! Malls are open too, move right along and just all forget this and go shopping, drink beer, watch a hockey game or play XBox.


This is why I am sickened by all the newsstand "science magazines". Virtually every single one, from WIRED to Pop Science, etc is nothing more than a cheerleader for drone and war tech.
Literally it's futuristic war porn. "See new ways the powers that be have to kill innocent men women and children, page 25".
Hell the head of Wired magazine also is a higher up for a large drone manufacturer. He even brags about it in that PBS documentary.

And the xbox/apple loving public will be all for giving up more of their rights and especially new killing machines as it will sold under "wow isnt this cool and neat?". All the geek/tech blogs are guilty of this as well.

I never imagined the left would fall THIS much asleep since Bush went to pursue a painting career.
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby justdrew » Thu Apr 25, 2013 1:33 am

By 1964 there were 1.5 million mobile phone users in the US
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby The Consul » Thu Apr 25, 2013 2:08 am

Now they say #2 didn't have a gun in the boat.

Now they say #1 was actually on the terrorist watch list.

The whole capture part of the story is now suspect. Anything the FBI says about #1 cannot be believed. Anything they ay at all is to be treated as utter horsehit. They really did it this time. They fucked up unlike they ever fucked up before.

ABCNBCFOXCBSPBS will have to work extra hard to cover for them. I'm looking for an intrepid reporter from Boston to stick the fork in their ass. Read the telepromter. Honey, read the teleprompter, just say the words. Don't you want that house in Bocca Raton? Just read the teleprompter. We need to put cameras in the mosques. How many times can you use the word "loon" before that is what people think you are? Read the teleprompter. What is a drive by media, anyway? Read it. He did not have a gun. He did not have a gun and they said he reached out from under the tarp and fired several shots at approaching officers who returned fire in a massive fuselage.

He wouldnt stop moving. Bang bang bang bang. Jesus won't this little prick ever die? They waited till They fucking thought he was dead.

Oops. Holy shit.... Muslims Die Harder than Bruce Willis, who'd a thunk? 19 maybe weight 130 pounds, well, maybe more now with all the lead in him.

No...no...he didn't have a gun but we thought he was a bomb....no no...we couldn't see a bomb but we thought he swallowed a pressure cooker. Yeah, that's it, no gun, no no gun. Read the teleprompter. Say, "so what?"
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby hiddenite » Thu Apr 25, 2013 7:58 am

some anomalies :

The pic of #2 getting out of the boat is now being touted as earlier surveillance pic of him getting in.
A you tube eye witness account of the shootout took pics and states they had 2 cars, the black SUV and a green sedan "with supplies", she shows 2 cars in her pics , one with door open , from which she claims they to'd and fro'd.
The 2 young men arrested in Revere (?) then released, now rearrested and their apartment emptied according to local news, shared their home with a young woman , sometimes described as #2s girlfriend. At the time of the first arrest she was loaded into a car with diplomatic plates, seem to recall someone saying a courtroom was cleared and a car with diplomatic plates approached ? No mention of her being rearrested along with her co-habitees. Also stated #2 slept at this apartment for 2 nights following the bombings.
Listening to the scanners on the final arrest night, after the press conference, where it was stated that the robbery was unconnected , although people seemed to miss that bit, the police/quasi miiltary on the ground appeared not to have been told to expect people to be reassured that they could now leave their homes, so there were lots of requests for how to deal with folk coming out of their houses. Reports of gunfire and a mass rush to the scene of the boat followed close after this apparent confusion. Timing and lack of coherent instructions seemed peculiar.
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby Canadian_watcher » Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:26 am

Iamwhomiam wrote:C_w, someone should tell that guy growing weed anywhere in the US is a felony. A few, in fact.
So we have one complaint. Perhaps a wiser person might do what others do, buy their weed.

Regarding your last, Homeland Security has the right to patrol all public transportation anywhere within a one hundred miles of our borders.

Securing the homeland. Uh huh. Familiarizing us with the future.


And the point is that they weren't investigating those people and weren't looking for weed growers.
They who live in glass houses, I guess. If you don't' h ave anything to hide, you don't have anything to fear, right?
Just wait till they expand the list of laws and things best hidden. Like membership on a board such as this, for example.

Just like with terrorists - you can't fight the terror AFTER it's happened - you can't fight the gov't/military complex AFTER they've managed to pull off their coup. So, we read the signs. We read the signs just like they do when trying to predict if a nasty foul plot is afoot.
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby Canadian_watcher » Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:55 am

compared2what? wrote:
Canadian_watcher wrote:
compared2what? wrote:
.
Oh and police/militarized cops/etc acted accordingly. This wasnt even close to martial law.


Show me that they didn't and/or that it was and I'll change my mind. .


so is this just semantics for you, then? As in, Vietnam was not a war because war was never declared, type of thing?

Could you maybe explain what martial law might look like? See, I've had family live through a declared and activated period of marital law (YES! IT's TRUE!) so I *do* know what it looks like - it isn't just a fucking imagined fantasy of it. Let's see if you're close. Go on.


I understand that it's a frightening sight. And that it's more frightening if it's also a trigger.


it's not a trigger - I didn't live through it, I just know that people did. And since it's a part of my familial heritage I have learned about it and watched footage from the period and listened to interviews of people and politicians who were there during it. Not to mention, of course, the first hand accounts by family.

compared2what? wrote:But it coexists with another context (political), which is also important. And in that one, the difference between "looks like martial law" and "martial law" is not just fucking semantics. They're both objectionable. But only one of them defines who you are and what you can do about it or anything else.


Which one can you do something about, then? What Boston went through was exactly the same as what Montreal went through - it was exactly the same except that there was no declaration. I believe that they should have declared a state of Martial Law. The fact that they didn't but that they carried it out anyway is the one that ought to scare you and everybody else, frankly because when they don't officially begin something how, pray tell, can anyone be sure they've ended it? How can anyone know what the true state of their rights are during and 'after' - see, there is no after in this case. There's only during.

compared2what? wrote:I don't know. There's not as much of a difference between feeling powerless and being powerless as one might hope.



Oh yes there is. You FEEL powerless when men with guns storm your house looking for a criminal on the loose and meantime have a looky loo at everything you're doing and threaten to arrest you for it. You ARE powerless when you wake up and realize that it's a permanent state of affairs. It's what happens in the in between time that will either hasten or prevent the latter from happening.
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.-- Jonathan Swift

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby MacCruiskeen » Thu Apr 25, 2013 10:59 am

"Whatever thinks shabbily, I call bourgeois." (Flaubert) Apropos, today's Guardian showcases the thoughts of one Amanda Holpuch:

Boston Marathon bombings: rounding up the conspiracy theories [sic]

[...]

To protect your pristine search history, here's a round-up of some of the prevailing theories [sic] dominating online comments, Reddit threads and the inboxes of reporters. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news ... y-theories


Says it all, really. Tips from the shabby on how to stay prudently pristine.
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Re: What is the deal with these guys in khakis?

Postby crikkett » Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:07 am

Good morning! I'm cross-posting some good stuff from FourthBase's facebook page, scrutinizing military, homeland security, and law enforcement response to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Here's maybe the juiciest subject so far, of both good and bad questions:
http://ftp.dailypaul.com/282579/identit ... n-bombings
http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/pos ... _yesterday
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/ ... rcement-b/

If you're the curious type, you might have eventually wound up stumbling on that same team of dudes via this hyper-presumptuous and hypo-reasoned meme:
http://images.4chan.org/b/src/1366445428542.jpg

I am not myself proclaiming "False flag!" I hate that ****. What's the point of ever asking a question, or ever formulating a good question to begin with, if you think you already have all the answers? There's none, no point. (Except maybe making the very act of asking a good question look bad?) For that reason, if you are one of those who recently announced that you would forever ignore any conspiracy theorist: Trust me, I understand. I get that. But you also want good questions asked, and answered well, right? Good news, then. This is the latter, not the former.

And the question is simply:
[seinfeld] What is the deal with these guys in khakis? [/seinfeld]
The way I see it, merely based on their position, they are at least guilty of some serious incompetence. Two dudes standing mere feet away from the first blast site, dudes who -- it's pretty safe to assume -- are supposed to be kind of keeping an eye out for shady bastards trying to do shady stuff, and they don't notice two shady bastards walk over, drop a big backpack, and walk away? Methinks they don't deserve a bonus in their next paycheck. Perhaps they should even be penalized.
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If it could happen in Hillsborough, could it happen in Bosto

Postby crikkett » Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:16 am

The Boston Marathon Bombings share the same date as the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in 1989: 4/15.

A synchronicity is revealed for people who suspect that law enforcement may be covering up foreknowledge of the bombings or covering up wrongdoing.
-crikkett

FourthBase on facebook wrote:I suppose it's time to fess up. I am one of the internet's great "conspiracy theorists" -- or rather: One of the internet's great good-question-askers, great far-out-truth-intuiters, great interpreters-of-bizarre-possibilities.

viewtopic.php?p=498186#p498186
.. I looked up Liverpool on wikipedia, and noticed that Hillsborough thing that someone had linked to once as an example of massive blatant coordinated deception on the part of the government, law enforcement, and the media -- and boy was it ever! -- thankfully rectified for good just a few months ago, I guess. Still many sons of bitches who deserve a comeuppance, but at least the fans are finally, thoroughly vindicated. And then, I noticed the date. April 15th.



included for your listening pleasure

FourthBase on facebook wrote:I know it might seem like I have an inherent, implacable distrust for all authority. I don't. It might seem like I suspect all law enforcement of being corrupt, or worse. I don't. My uncle (mother's brother) was an Army veteran, and a Boston cop for over four decades. I loved my uncle. He was a good man. (I even took the exam myself once, scored a 97, which must've been pretty good that year because I kept getting postcards to come in for an interview, but...no, sorry, I cannot hold a gun, ever.) Furthermore: My father was in the National Guard, and risked his life every day protecting others as a private guard, in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods this city has to offer. He was a good man. I loved him. His brother stormed Normandy. (Not so good a man, but that's a different story.)

Three other brothers were also veterans, including one who served in Air Force intelligence. Back to my mother's side, I have a first cousin who retired from the Army as a Lt. Col. and now writes military sci-fi. He's a good man. I respect him. I have several other cousins who one way or another have served in the armed forces. I cry with gratitude sometimes when I watch television shows about WWII. I simultaneously wept and laughed and clapped at the television the other night for five solid minutes when that suspect was finally apprehended. I shed tears whenever the National Anthem is sung well. I love this country, and I honor those who defend it. I love this city, and I treasure those who protect it.

But that is not to say, necessarily, that every person employed in the field of national or civic security is honorable. No, unfortunately, some of them probably aren't. Hopefully very few. Sometimes the people in charge of our safety are not quite treasures, and more like terrors. Perhaps fueled by the mistaken belief that some relatively-minor unconstitutional or immoral wrong will prevent a catastrophically-major unthinkable one. Perhaps, though, fueled by greed -- a greed for power, or money, or both. I don't know.

...I do have an innate, measured skepticism of most authority, of the official narratives we are asked to accept with little to no questioning, in particular the higher-ups in any and every powerful institution, not least of which the so-called legitimate media. Why? Well, because of things like this, and there is no shortage of other examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster

Sometimes, one really must ask another good question, a meta-question, a sometimes hazardous but generally-useful one. Not just "Am I being paranoid?" but: "Am I being paranoid enough?" Perhaps you are not paranoid at all. Is that enough?
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby brainpanhandler » Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:16 am

Karmamatterz wrote:
Simulist wrote: Hi Canadian_watcher. I know we disagree on this, but any two thinking people are going to disagree sometimes.

I think you're right that there are (at least) two issues here, but I don't think they are separate issues in the minds of some who appear to be suggesting that the bombings were staged in order to suspend civil liberties a little further; one such suggestion was made at a news conference last week, if I recall correctly. My remarks were written with those voices in mind. But I agree with you that in general, and at least in my mind too, these are separate issues.

And I would be uncomfortable — in the extreme — with a show of police force as happened last week in Boston, were this a normal state of affairs in America. But it isn't; this was an extraordinary show of force against what is arguably the greatest act of terrorism on American soil since 9/11.

What continues to concern me are matters like the Patriot Act, indefinite detention, the Military Commissions Act, the continuation of Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions, drone strikes, warrantless wiretapping, and the abuse by police against citizens occurring throughout the United States with increasing regularity and as a matter of course. In view of all this, some people are understandably concerned with the overwhelming police response last week in Boston. I am not yet one of them — but if this kind of theater on American streets becomes a sort of slippery slope, I'm likely to become one of them pretty fast.

[Not particularly well-written on my part, because I have somewhere to be soon, and I've got to get going.]


Hmmmm.....wouldn't drones have really helped in capturing the ALLEDGED suspect(s) faster? Wouldn't drones make us all safer?

Wouldn't more cameras help keep on eye on all of us better? I mean Jesus frackking hell and back, get those brainy fuckers at DARPA working on some Minority Report gollywood technology to predict this shit will happen before it does and just take the muthas out like they be a camel rider in da Middle East! Right now bitch!

Just git'er done! Fuck the Bill of Rights and living in peaceful communities where we thrive on education, healthy living and cooperative spirit. Shits all overrated. I want more paramilitary cool shit, more movies about it and some more awesome episodes on the Military Channel about cool ways to spy U.S. citizens, and neato ways to torture.


Why must you and others in this thread repeatedly resort to this sort of strawman argument? If someone does not immediately agree that the police response in Boston was full on fascist martial law then they become a cheerleader for darpa and the police state?

I wish you and others would stop arguing this way. Please.


You're saying this was the greatest act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil since 911


Arguably it is.
well it all fits nicely with the Patriotless Act and unwarranted phone taps, snooping on emails and web searches, getting my groin groped at the airport etc....


I gues by "it" you mean the response to the bombings and not the bombings themselves (the greatest act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil since 911).

I would say that yes, all those things are of apiece in some very loose way in that the same governmental agencies are responsible for them. However, "unwarranted phone taps, snooping on emails and web searches, getting my groin groped at the airport" are all invasive, preventative measures which are obviously substantially different sorts of actions than trying to aprehend bombing suspects that pose an immediate threat to public safety.


This well orchestrsted show of force seems to go hand in hand with your comment about this act of terrorism.


I don't know what that means.

Does anybody actually think that Homeland Insecurity doling out of billions of $$$$$$$$ to local police departments, cities and counties was just for kick starting higher employment?


I doubt anyone here does. But I guess that's a rhetorical question.

The photo of the dudes in their armored vehicle on their way to work with the cute Bruins sticker didn't happen by accident. The new norm? Sheesh,, this shit has been in the works and continually deployed into the warehouses and training drills for years. All that heavy equipment and those handsome paramilitary uniforms didn't just appear with the magic terrorist unicorn. Shit's been in serious buildup since 911, or before. It's not the new norm, it's been their training norm, they were just waiting to bust it out.


That's exactly right and everyone that reads this board knows it. Do you think you're telling us something we don't know?

Drone manufacturers have got to have the biggest hard-ons right now drooling over the prospect of private presentations to the Boston PD. But nah, that's not fascist at all, that is too harsh


Again with the strawman argument.

There's a whole thread on fascism, what it is and what it isn't.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35352&hilit=what+is+fascism

It's not really so clear what fascism is.

Fascism isn't something all of us are ready to embrace


At a guess based on my own experience of Americans I would say fully 50% of the population at least would embrace a system of governance which in many respects could fairly be called fascism right now or even really at any time since world war II. Perhaps another 25% just need a few more nudges, as you say, in order to turn a blind eye and quietly go along. And then there are perhaps another 25% that will need to be rounded up and detained. But I suspect that 21st century fascism will not look exactly like 20th century fascism.

or are scared shitless to admit it's shadow is present and unfortunately grows with every incident like this.


That's probably the 25% that'll go along quietly.

Drone sales, infrared cameras, armored vehicles, snooping technology are just good ol' capitalism. Embrace it, then go to Disney! Malls are open too, move right along and just all forget this and go shopping, drink beer, watch a hockey game or play XBox.


That's the 50% that are bloodthirsty assholes right now and the 25% that'll go along quietly.

I spoke too early after quoting The Consul, guess I had sumpin' to say after all. It's sarcastic and pendantic as hell, but that has a charming fit on this board lately.


Not really. This board is almost excluisively in the 25% camp that will need to be rounded up for having wrong thoughts. I don't understand why members feel the need to lecture other members of this board as though they were fox news watchers.
Last edited by brainpanhandler on Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby elfismiles » Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:20 am

wow, threads like these can be really hard to keep up with ... I stopped reading some time yesterday morning (had real world meatspace stuff to do) and so ... I'm still playing catchup ... back on page 19-89:

1989 the number another summer (get down)
Sound of the funky drummer
Music hittin' your heart cause I know you got sould
(Brothers and sisters, hey)


er um, page 89
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby brainpanhandler » Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:36 am

Project Willow wrote:
brainpanhandler wrote:Why not start planning for the post apocalypse now?


Yeah, I know. Everyday I engage in habits that will hasten my death. Gotta do my bit.

A question that sometimes pops up in my mind, when we enter full on martial law, will they take the opportunity to mow down us slaves? Perhaps it will matter even less then and we'll be rounded up with everyone else.

Humans are as predictably horrible as they've always been, to each other, and the planet. I just feel bad for the small portion of potential good and potential joy that is lost, and the kids, as cliche as that may sound. If there's an afterlife, and they try to send me back as a human, Ima gonna blow up the universe.


Well, now it's my turn to say it's not quite that hopeless, yet. Although ask me tomorrow and maybe I'll say it's even more hopeless.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

Postby MacCruiskeen » Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:00 pm

Image
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

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Emadeddin "Emad" Muntasser and jihad in Boston

Postby crikkett » Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:09 pm

Emad Muntasser was not just behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but supported Chechen and other jihadi causes through CARE International, until its closure and his prosecution for tax fraud in 2005. He was based in Boston.

FourthBase on facebook wrote: One of the bonuses of being a veteran tin-foiler is that the name Emadeddin "Emad" Muntasser has been familiar to me for 8 years now. If you want to know why, then cross-google "P-Tech" and "9/11", but don't say I didn't warn you, if you don't enjoy peering down rabbit holes. Most of you will probably be learning of it here for the first time. I felt a special need to remember it, because some of my loved ones and myself live in Braintree, the town where he lives, where Logan Furniture was headquartered. The bonus has had almost no use over the years, of course. Knowledge for its own sake. But there was one time it came in handy.

One morning I was up at the crack of ass, watching Channel 5. It was around the time that Qaddafi had been, uh, deposed. WCVB sought the opinion of an ordinary Libyan immigrant on the situation, and who do they send a camera to the home of for that opinion, why, lo and behold, it was Emadeddin Muntasser, his lovely family in the background. In an incredulous flash, I alerted WCVB on Facebook that next time they might want to spend 5 minutes googling before choosing a person to be the voice of a community. In all subsequent half-hour newscasts that morning, the Muntasser interview had been removed.



http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... ?page=full
When Boston Marathon runners rounded the bend from Beacon Street last week, they were in the home stretch of the race. As they poured through the closed intersection, they ran past a nondescript address: 510 Commonwealth Avenue.

The location was once home to an international support network that raised funds and recruited fighters for a jihadist insurgency against Russian rule over Chechnya,
a region and a conflict that few of the runners had likely ever given any serious thought.

One mile farther, life in Boston was transformed in an act of horror that killed three and injured scores. And one week later, everyone in Boston and around the United States is thinking and talking and asking about Chechnya.

The investigation into alleged marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still in its infancy, but a press release issued by the FBI late Friday suggested that at least one of the brothers may have had some kind of connection to Chechen Islamist militant networks, a suspicion heightened by the fact that elder brother Tamerlan spent about six months in Russia in 2012. (The most important Chechen jihadist group has disavowed the attack, but has not unequivocally ruled out the possibility of some kind of contact with Tamerlan.)

It will take time to discover whether there was a militant connection and, if there was, to what extent it is pertinent to the Tsarnaevs' decision to bomb the marathon.

But if the lead pans out, it won't be Boston's first brush with that faraway war. During the 1980s and into the 1990s, Islamist foreign fighters operated robust recruiting and financing networks that supported Chechen jihadists from the United States, and Boston was home to one of the most significant centers: a branch of the Al Kifah Center based in Brooklyn, which would later be rechristened CARE International.

Al Kifah sprang from the military jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Through the end of the occupation, a network of centers in the United States helped support the efforts of Afghan and Arab mujahedeen, soliciting donations and recruiting fighters, including at least four from Boston who died in action (one of them a former Dunkin Donuts employee). When the war ended, those networks did not disappear; they refocused on other activities.

In Brooklyn, that network turned against the United States. The center's leaders and many of its members helped facilitate the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and they actively planned and attempted to execute a subsequent plot that summer to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in New York, which would have killed thousands.

When the FBI thwarted the tunnels plot, the Brooklyn Al Kifah office and most of the other satellite locations were shuttered. But in Boston, the work continued under a new name and with a new focus: supporting foreign-fighter efforts in Bosnia and Chechnya.

The following narrative is derived from interviews and thousands of pages of court exhibits, including correspondence, Al Kifah and CARE International publications, and telephone intercepts developed over a years-long series of FBI investigations into the charity that were made public as part of multiple terrorism-related prosecutions.

Established in the early 1990s, the Boston branch had emerged from the World Trade Center investigation relatively unscathed. Little more than two weeks after the bombing, the head of the Boston office, Emad Muntasser, changed his operation's name from Al Kifah to CARE International (not to be confused with the legitimate charity of the same name).

Telling the IRS it was a non-political charity, CARE applied for and received a tax exemption, but its operations continued as before -- supporting jihad overseas with money and men. Although it was heavily focused on the ongoing conflicts in Bosnia and Chechnya, its interests reached around the globe to anywhere mujahideen were fighting. As one associate of the group put it in a phone call recorded by the FBI, "As long as there is slaughtering, we're with them. If there's no slaughtering, there's none, that's it. Buzz off."

The name change deflected public scrutiny, and while law enforcement monitored the Boston operation for many years, the Justice Department made no attempt to prosecute the organization's principal leaders until after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Jihadist propaganda and recruiting didn't begin with the Internet, as it sometimes seems today. CARE's tactics included dinner speeches and events at local mosques and universities, among them MIT, Boston College, and Boston University, usually slipping them in under the auspices of the local Muslim Students Association, sometimes as part of Friday services. They ran "phonathons" to contact potential donors at home with urgent appeals for generosity.

The charity also arranged public screenings of jihadist videos, long before the advent of YouTube. One letter to CARE supporters promised to "bring to your [mosque] the latest video tape from CHECHNYA showing how Grouznyy [sic] was recaptured by Muslims and how the CHECHENS are struggling to implement the Islamic rule in their land by help of Allah (S.W.T). It will be a fund raising event. For the Donations we have our direct contact to CHECHNYA."

When the Internet did come along, CARE was an early adopter, using email blasts and websites to further spread its message.

Although CARE was based in Boston, the radical fundamentalists who ran the charity (a mix of American citizens and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa) were often disappointed with local Muslims, who were not particularly interested in their cause.

"I hate Boston," said Mohammed Chehade, a director of the Global Relief Foundation, one of the charities through which CARE laundered its money, in a phone conversation with CARE's directors that was recorded by the FBI in 2000. "Do you know why I hate it? The men are far from each other, far away, it is a trip between one and another. They are busy. I mean, Boston... if someone wants to stay in America temporarily, it is not a place to be."

In other conversations, CARE's leaders bemoaned the fact that area Muslims refused to cough up money for the network's radical speakers, suggesting that they avoid bringing prominent speakers to the city, or at least characterize the trips as something other than fundraising, for fear of an embarrassingly low result.

Nevertheless, one of those jihadist celebrities traveled to Boston on a number of occasions to raise money and the ire of audiences regarding Islamist conflicts in Chechnya and Bosnia. An American-born citizen of Egyptian descent, Mohammed Zaki sported a long red beard and a broad, engaging smile. He inspired fierce loyalty in those he met. One of his comrades described him as "a man whose like is rare nowadays," telling a comrade, "You will be amazed by him."

Zaki was involved in several so-called charities that actually helped finance and supply the mujahideen in Bosnia and Chechnya, while creating and distributing a steady stream of propaganda to support these efforts.

Based in San Diego, Zaki frequently traveled to Boston to take part in Al Kifah events and fire up crowds with his charisma and tough talk. At one point, a government wiretap overheard Muntasser, CARE's leader, asking him to fly to Boston "because we are looking for a brother who knows about matters [in Bosnia] to give an inciting speech."

Unlike some of his peers, Zaki wasn't just talk. He had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, alongside other American recruits. In 1993 and 1994, he traveled to Bosnia, where he fought alongside the mujahedeen, becoming well-known as "Abu Umar the American." He also made videotapes of the mujahedeen camps, which he took back the United States to use for fundraising. When foreign fighters began flocking to Chechnya in the mid-1990s to battle Russian forces, Zaki shifted his focus. In a telephone conversation recorded by the FBI in February 1995, he told one of his followers, "Chechnya comes first."

Zaki recruited a number of Americans to serve as Islamist foreign fighters, as well as coordinating and supporting recruitment in the Middle East. One of the young men he inspired was Aukai Collins, an American convert from an Irish family, who would wage war in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya. Dismayed by attacks on civilians under the pretext of jihad, Colllins returned to the United States in the 1990s and began working with the FBI as an informant.

A number of other American citizens or long-term residents are known to have played roles supporting Chechen jihadists over the years, although the details are sometimes murky. The exact number who have fought with or otherwise been meaningfully involved in Chechen jihadist networks is unknown, but likely runs into the dozens.

In early 1995, Zaki departed for Chechnya himself, telling a friend, "I hope that I will be granted martyrdom this time." That wish was granted in May, around a month after he arrived. According to his comrades, Zaki was discussing the Quran with his fellow fighters when the class was shelled by the Russians. Zaki was the only casualty.

Struck by shrapnel, he lingered briefly before dying. On his deathbed, he said he had seen the virgins of paradise promised to jihadist martyrs. "They told me I would follow them," he said. His supporters back in Boston took up collections for his family, a wife and four children left behind in San Diego.

The major recruiting tool for the Boston office was a newsletter called Al Hussam, which translates as "The Sword." Published in both English and Arabic, the newsletter was stuffed with short, informative news items from various fronts in the global jihad. Bosnia, the most active theater, took up most of the ink, but updates also flowed in from Chechnya, Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, and elsewhere. The authors also tried, with less success, to whip up support for Islamic revolts in Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Correspondents in Chechnya communicated with the writers of Al Hussam by phone with reports from the front lines. From time to time, the newsletter would interview prominent mujahedeen commanders and fawningly profile leaders of the movement, such as Shamil Basayev, mastermind of the notorious 2004 Beslan school massacre that left 331 people dead. One flyer distributed by CARE and affiliated charities described Basayev as "a Muslim hero."

These endorsements came because of, not in spite of, Basayev's terrorist tactics. In one issue, Al Hussam ran a glowing review of an incident in which Basayev took hundreds of hostages at a hospital. In the same edition, it praised the formation of Chechen "suicide brigades to carry on suicide attacks," writing "we have to fight evil with evil." Another issue praised a terrorist bombing attack against a Russian mediator who was trying to negotiate a ceasefire with the mujahideen.

Checks flowed into CARE from individuals around the United States -- sometimes just $10 or $50, with the word "Chechen Muslim fighters" or "martyr's family" scrawled in the memo line. Sometimes individual donations ran into the thousands. The total collected from 1993 to 2003 was $1.7 million, according to the Justice Department.

Once deposited with CARE, the money was laundered through other fraudulent charities, including the al Qaeda-linked Benevolence International Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation, both in Chicago, and sent to front organizations in Bosnia and Chechnya. In total, hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through CARE for distribution to jihadists and jihad-support organizations overseas.

A significant portion of that money -- exactly how much is difficult to determine -- went to support Chechen Islamist fighters, although CARE International's books listed the recipients as orphanages and refugees. Individual transfers could be as low as $1,000 but often ran between $20,000 and $30,000. Funds, and occasionally supplies, were transferred to a contact in Chechnya through an elaborate series of middlemen, including individuals in Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The FBI monitored CARE's activities, off and on, for nearly a decade, but the Justice Department never made an effort to prosecute, in part because prosecuting foreign-fighter activity was difficult under existing laws.

But after September 11, the U.S. government aggressively pursued anything relating to jihadist extremism, including several cases of foreign-fighter support. Just weeks after the attacks, the Justice Department shuttered the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation, raiding the latter's offices in Chicago and Sarajevo, where they found extensive evidence of support for foreign fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya, as well as significant links to al Qaeda. They also found checks and receipts from CARE.

It took longer to build a case against CARE. In 2005, prosecutors in Boston went after the charity's directors using the Al Capone strategy. Muntasser and fellow Boston-area CARE officials Samir Al Monla and Muhamed Mubayyid were charged with filing false tax returns and related crimes, having misrepresented their political and militant activity as relief for orphans and widows in order to obtain a nonprofit tax exemption.

The strategy was not as successful as it was with Capone. The defendants were convicted but received minimal sentences after years of appeals and legal disputes. Muntasser and Al Monla have since been released from prison and are living in the United States, according to public records databases. Mubayyid was deported after a short sentence and was last reported to be living in Australia.

Some of the group's other associates, linked to al Qaeda, were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder overseas. But many involved in CARE's operations at various levels were never arrested.

In some cases, people who were involved in supporting jihadist activity abroad came to realize after 9/11 that their often well-intentioned support had been used to support terrorism against civilians and against the United States, and stopped participating in the scene.

Others were simply not implicated adequately to prosecute, although they may have played important roles. Not everyone involved with CARE went to jail, but the organization itself had shut down when the IRS and FBI began investigating it aggressively in 2003, and almost no one involved completely escaped scrutiny.

Although the formal network had collapsed, its activism echoed through Boston's radical scene for years afterward and those echoes persist today.

In 2008, Boston-area resident Tarek Mehanna wrote a widely circulated piece called "The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw" about local residents' experience with Siddiqui, a former MIT student arrested in Afghanistan and charged with trying to murder U.S. personnel. Siddiqui had been an enthusiastic volunteer with CARE International.

Mehanna himself was convicted of material support of terrorism, in part for translating and disseminating al Qaeda propaganda online, and in April 2012, he was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.

Today, traffic on Commonwealth Avenue has returned to normal, and the office building that once hosted CARE International is filled with other people -- restaurants, an art gallery, residential apartments, and more. The story that unfolded there more than a decade ago will not be remembered as keenly as what happened last week, and rightly so. But Boston's first encounter with the Chechen jihad holds a place in the history of that event, a reminder that sometimes what happened behind the headlines can have unexpected resonance with the events of the day.
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