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Police are seeking these two men as "persons of interest," the Post reported. There is no direct evidence linking them to the crime. (New York Post)

Photos Show 'Persons of Interest' in Boston Marathon Bombings

Wednesday, 17 Apr 2013 11:15 PM

By Todd Beamon

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Federal officials on Wednesday were seeking two men as “persons of interest” in the Boston Marathon terror bombings and they distributed photographs for “law enforcement eyes only” that show the men carrying a duffel bag and a backpack.

The FBI is not sharing the photos with the public but the New York Post ran several photos that they linked to the investigation Thursday.

The men in the photos have not been labeled as suspects. There is no direct evidence linking them to the crime. It was not immediately clear if the men in the law-enforcement photos are the same men in the surveillance videos.

In the photos being distributed by law-enforcement officials, one of the men is carrying a blue duffel bag. The other is wearing a black backpack in the first photo, taken at 10:53 a.m., but it is not visible in the second, taken at 12:30 p.m, the Post reported.

“The attached photos are being circulated in an attempt to identify the individuals highlighted therein,” said an e-mail obtained by The Post. “Feel free to pass this around to any of your fellow agents elsewhere.”

Authorities know the names of the two men, but do not have enough evidence to make an arrest for Monday’s attack, which killed three and wounded 176, sources told the Post.

Fox said a reporter for the network had seen the photos and called them “clear."

An unidentified Boston politician told The Associated Press Wednesday that investigators are seeking a man seen in a department store surveillance video dropping off a bag at the site of the bombings while a law-enforcement official confirmed that authorities have found an image of a potential suspect but they do not yet know his name.

It is not known whether the suspects in any of these instances are linked, according to news reports.

Meanwhile, Boston City Council President Stephen Murphy, who said he was briefed by local police, told the AP that investigators saw the image on surveillance footage they received from the Lord & Taylor department store near the finish line and matched the findings with witness descriptions of a person leaving the scene.

“I know it's very active and very fluid right now — that they are on the chase,” Murphy told the AP. He added: “They may be on the verge of arresting someone, and that's good.”

The department store video “has confirmed that a suspect is seen dropping a bag near the point of the second explosion and heading off,” Murphy said.

And in another development, investigators are exploring whether the bombs were assembled not far from the scene of the explosions — since transporting such improvised devices over any significant distance could trigger a premature detonation, The Wall Street Journal reports.

FBI agents and local police are canvassing Boston hotels and short-term rentals for clues on where the bombs could have been constructed, a law-enforcement official told The Journal.

The federal agency, with the assistance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel, have been scrutinizing passenger lists from flights that had recently arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport for clues, the official said.

Investigators spent Wednesday poring over photos and video footage and piecing together shredded remnants of bombs looking for possible suspects. Monday’s attacks near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three and injured more than 170, many critically.

The developments came also amid much confusion as to whether a suspect had been arrested.

A number of news organizations reported that a person had been taken into custody, but the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI, and Boston police insisted that no arrest had been made.

“Despite reports to the contrary, there has not been an arrest in the Marathon attack,” Boston police reported on Twitter about 2:40 p.m. Wednesday.

“Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack,” the FBI said in a statement later Wednesday afternoon.

“There’s been a lot of chaos and a lot of misinformation floating around,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told CNN in an interview. “There has not been an arrest. There is no one in custody, but the investigation continues to unfold and they’re making progress. It’s going to take some time.”

As of late Wednesday, no arrests had been made — and more than 100 of the victims had been released from local hospitals.

At least 14 bombing victims remained in critical condition, and officials at three hospitals that treated some of the most seriously injured said they expected all their remaining patients to survive, the AP reports.

The three who died in the bombings were: 8-year-old Martin Richard of Dorchester, Mass.; Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass.; and Lingzu Lu, 23, a graduate student in statistics at Boston University from Shenyang, China.

According to authorities, a mangled pressure cooker lid found on the roof of a nearby building is believed to have been part of one bomb. It and other pieces were being analyzed at an FBI lab, Fox reports.

A battery and several pieces of shrapnel also were recovered and undergoing analysis.

A circuit board found at the scene on Tuesday is suspected of being used to detonate at least one of the bombs — and the FBI was also analyzing cellphone tower records to identify positive hits for signs of calls that may have been placed to trigger both explosions remotely.

In addition, FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials said that the shrapnel that caused the three deaths — and critical injuries to as many as 17 others — included nails, BBs and ball bearings.

The other device “was also housed in a metal container,” but investigators could not say if that was also a pressure cooker, Fox reports.

Pressure cooker bombs have been used in high-profile bombings in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan — and they have been touted by al-Qaida in Yemen’s online magazine Inspire and in the “The Anarchist Cookbook.”

The explosions occurred within about 12 seconds of each other — and about 100 feet apart — around 2:50 p.m. near the finish line of the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon. Nearly 25,000 people competed in the celebrated race.

Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, confirmed that investigators had found pieces of black nylon from a bag or backpack and fragments of BBs and nails, possibly contained in a pressure cooker. The items were sent to the FBI laboratory at Quantico, Va., for analysis, Fox reports.

The FBI also plans to reconstruct the devices at their headquarters in Quantico, according to MyFoxBoston.com.

And Fagor America, a manufacturer of pressure cookers based in Lyndhurst, N.J., told The Boston Globe on Wednesday it had been “contacted by government investigators and are extending our full cooperation.”

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama — as well 2012 GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — will be in Boston on Thursday for an interfaith service to honor the victims.


© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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The Last Toast ... Thanks John M!

Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013, 4:03 PM

A final toast for the Doolittle Raiders - By Bob Greene, Chicago

Lt. Col. James Doolittle leans over a bomb on the USS Hornet deck just before his "Raiders" began the bombing raid on Tokyo.

This week, the few remaining Doolittle Raiders will reunite.

• In 1942 the 80 men bombed Tokyo in death-defying mission, retaliation for Pearl Harbor.
• A case of 80 goblets is brought to their annual reunions. When a Raider dies a cup is upended.
• This year, there are four left. They'll toast the Raiders with aged cognac, and end reunions.

It's the cup of brandy that no one wants to drink. On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the surviving Doolittle Raiders will gather publicly for the last time.They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation's history. The mere mention of their unit's name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.

Now only four survive.

After Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around. Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This had never before been tried -- sending such big, heavy bombers from a carrier.The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing. But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military caught wind of the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.

And those men went anyway.
They bombed Tokyo, and then flew as far as they could. Four planes crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died. Eight more were captured; three were executed. Another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia.

The Doolittle Raid sent a message from the United States to its enemies, and to the rest of the world:

We will fight. And, no matter what it takes, we will win.

Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid; "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit, and the phrase became part of the national lexicon. In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM proclaimed that it was presenting the story "with supreme pride."

Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson, Arizona, as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider.

Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets is transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passes away, his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion, as his old friends bear solemn witness.

Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy Very Special cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.

There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it, and toast their comrades who preceded them in death.

As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.

What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.

The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts ... there was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that emblematizes the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:

"When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005."

So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain: Dick Cole (Doolittle's co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue.

The events in Fort Walton Beach this week will mark the end. It has come full circle; Florida's nearby Eglin Field was where the Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission.

The town is planning to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration of their valor, including luncheons, a dinner and a parade.

Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save the country have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice? They don't talk about that, at least not around other people. But if you find yourself near Fort Walton Beach this week, and if you should encounter any of the Raiders, you might want to offer them a word of thanks. I can tell you from first-hand observation that they appreciate hearing that they are remembered.

The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date -- some time this year -- to get together once more, informally and in absolute privacy. That is when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by too swiftly now; they are not going to wait until there are only two of them.

They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets.

And raise them in a toast to those who are gone.