Federal investigators revealed that the Boston bombers initially wanted to launch their terror attack on Independence Day, but changed to the marathon because they finished building their bombs faster than they thought they could.
Officials told NBC that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, finished making pressure-cooker bombs sooner than expected. And that’s why they bombed the marathon, April 15 — Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts.
Dzhokhar, who’s under watch in a federal medical facility at Fort Devens, told investigators the pair made the bombs in the basement of Tamerlan’s apartment in Cambridge, The New York Post reported.
The New York Times reported that Dzhokhar also told investigators that the brothers drove all around Boston to find a site to bomb, before settling on the finish line of the marathon.
Investigators also recently learned from Dzhokhar that the brothers watched Internet sermons of radicalized American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki online sometime before the bombings, The Times reported. Al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen in September 2011 from an American drone strike.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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