Russia has been faulted in a just-released inspector general’s report of holding back on crucial intelligence information about one of the Boston Marathon bombers — information that may have actually raised enough FBI red flags that agents could have stopped the terrorist attack.
Moscow authorities at first told U.S. officials in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a “radical” who wanted to join “unspecified groups” at various overseas destinations, The New York Times reported. The FBI tried to follow up with Russia to get more information about Tsarnaev — but they were largely ignored, the report from the inspector general of the Office of the Intelligence Community found.
What went missing from U.S. intelligence was that Tsarnaev actually spoke on the phone with his mother in Dagestan and told her that he was mulling a jihad against America, The New York Post reported.
Had Russia shared that tidbit, the entire attack might have been averted, the IG report stated.
“They found that the Russians did not provide all the information that they had on him back then, and based on everything that was available, the FBI did all that it could,” said one unnamed U.S. official, in The New York Times. “Had they known what the Russians knew, they probably would have been able to do more under our investigative guidelines. But would they have uncovered the plot? That’s very hard to say.”
The IG report also said that the FBI ought to do a better job of sharing information with other law enforcement agencies at state and local levels.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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