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April 16th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
It is shortly before the anniversaries of two other terrorist attacks, the
Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 and the Columbine High School shooting on
April 20. Some terror experts have speculated that right-wingers could have
seen the Boston marathon as a liberal, multicultural bonanza somehow worthy
of targeting.
There has also been huge growth in the number of anti-government “Patriot”
groups during Barack Obama’s presidency. The Southern Poverty Law Centre,
which monitors hate groups, reported last month that because of the prospect
of gun-control legislation, “the threat of violence appears to be looming.”
The SPLC said that the number of Patriot groups reached record levels in 2012
and had grown by 813 percent over the past four years.
But Monday was also Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts, a public holiday
commemorating the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in
1775, the first battles of the war of independence, which would be cause for
celebration for such groups.
Furthermore, right-wing terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh, responsible for
the worst act of terror in America pre-September 11, 2001, tend to choose
targets relevant to their ideology, such as a federal building or tax
office.
Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College, London, said
most of the discussion was currently focussed on the choice of target and
the modus operandi.
Islamist terrorists, who have been foiled in numerous plots against New York,
may have thought Boston an easier target.
“Some groups used a particular kind of attack. With the IRA it was car bombs.
With al-Qaeda it has almost become a cliché but multiple explosions in the
same place are regarded as hallmarks of Islamist terror,” he said.
The crude explosives used, he said, gave little clue, suggesting “amateurish
right-wing, or amateurish al-Qaeda”.
“A bomb with ball bearing seems home made, the type of thing you would build
if you don’t really know how to build a bomb, perhaps with some instructions
or guide on the Internet,” he said.
Explosives with ball bearings have however been used often by insurgents in
Iraq and Afghanistan, which would add weight to the Islamist theory.
Apart from the modus operandi and target, investigators and researchers in
terrorism will be looking for online boasts or claims of responsibility from
those involved, or those linked to the bombers.
“The point of terrorism is to communicate a message through acts of violence.
The IRA used to call a newspaper, and now you often have claims on the
Internet,” said Prof Neumann.
So far, he said, there have been no such claims, deepening the likelihood that
the culprit(s) was either acting alone, or part of a small group loosely
connected to a bigger ideology or network.
The silence could also be explained if the police have already got their man,
through camera surveillance and eyewitnesses.
Whatever the attackers’ view of the world, they could well have been local,
said Juliette Kayyem, a lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
She told the Boston
Globe: “It is probably home-grown, someone with a political cause from
the right or the left. Someone who knows how appealing the Boston Marathon
is to citizens here.”
She added: “Even though it’s an international event, it is still a local
event,” she said.
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