A Week of Terror

A lot has happened in the space of twenty-four hours. American security experts placed a fine focus on information that helpfully flooded in from the public arena, in the wake of Monday's Boston Marathon atrocity. The perpetrators of the attack wanted to place their explosive charges carefully - geared to cause as much damage to soft tissues as possible. What better venue than a popular crowded event that would have tens of thousands of people present?

With murderously baleful intent aforethought what better time than a national public holiday? One that is surfeit with a celebratory mood, with expectations of competition and fun and pleasure, on a warm and sunny spring day in one of the largest cities of the United States. This was the plan of a studied hater, someone who saw fit to bypass a normal life for the grievance-laden and short life of a martyr for Islam, a jihadist.

The two brothers, 26-year-old Tamerlan, and 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, of Chechen origin, who had been accepted as refugees with their families in 2001, both enjoyed the privileges of a middle-class life of opportunity in the United States. They attended good schools with outstanding academic and sport programs and were exposed to the promise of an aspirational future. Their relatives are widespread in the U.S. and Canada.

The elder of the brothers is described as morose and unfriendly in temperament, an arrogant young man, married and a father of a child, who travelled to Chechnya for training in heroic jihadi fighting techniques and achieved some elemental mastery of designing explosives. The two mom'skitchen pressure cooker bombs he devised stuffed to the brim with explosives and nails killed three innocents outright and maimed and injured another 170.

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The younger of the two is popularly described by former teachers and peers, let alone family, as a sweet young man who would never wish harm on anyone. He distinguished himself academically. And he was obviously patterning himself, secretly, after the older brother he looked up to and admired, a willing student in terrorism techniques. His aunt in Toronto, a lawyer, shrilly insists her nephews were framed, echoing their father.

Explosives and firearms were discovered at their place of residence. After the Boston Marathon atrocity, it appears they went back home and just went about their normal, everyday business. While preparing to launch another deadly strike, somewhere else. When intelligence and security agents finally knew who they were looking for, and found them, in the early hours of this morning, the brothers had with them explosives and guns.

BBC's Laura Trevelyan, in Boston, said there was relief all around

Entirely innocently, since they were, of course, framed. Tamerlan (named for Tamerlane, the Turkish  ruler and warrior of great admiring repute in antiquity) is now in Paradise; he fought so bravely to achieve that honour, to be attended by a bevy of virgins, while his little brother is now in custody, and will be given the opportunity to explain to the country that had nurtured him and his family why it seemed such a good idea to terrorize it.