US investigators on
Wednesday arrested a suspect in connection with the Boston marathon bombings
that killed three people and wounded 180 others, CNN television reported.
The suspect was
identified from surveillance video taken by a department store camera and
another camera near the marathon finish line where two bombs sprayed metal
fragments into crowds on Monday, CNN and other media reported.
At least one of the video
cameras captured the suspect appearing to place one of the pressure cooker
bombs, the reports said.
The two blasts went off
in a 13-second period about 100 meters (yards) apart as stragglers among the
23,000 runners entered in the prestige event were completing the race.
The breakthrough came
ahead of a visit to Boston on Thursday by President Barack Obama to honor the
dead and injured.
With no claim of
responsibility made for the attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
said it has launched a “worldwide” hunt for those responsible.
It released photographs
of the mangled metal remnants of a pressure cooker believed to have been used
for one of the bombs which sprayed nails, ball bearings and metal pellets into
the huge crowds.
The lid of one pressure
cooker was found on the roof of a hotel near the bombs, the hotel’s owner told
AFP.
Shreds of black nylon
bags believed to have been used to carry the bombs have also been found.
Doctors at hospitals where
the critically injured were taken say ball bearings and nails taken from
patients were being used in the investigation.
George Velmahos,
Massachusetts General Hospital’s chief of trauma surgery, said the metal was
being handed over to police. He said 12 nails were taken from inside one
patient.
Peter Burke, chief trauma
surgeon at Boston Medical Center, also said the metal pieces was being kept
aside for the police. He said some of the nails were about five centimeters
(two inches) long.
Evidence is being
collected for analysis at the FBI’s main laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
Similar, easy-to-make
devices are used as roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq, but have also been
used by domestic extremists in the United States.
US authorities have
thrown virtually every investigation agency into the hunt with more than 1,000
officers working in Boston alone, said Rick DesLauriers, head of the FBI’s
Boston office.
Obama has condemned the
attack as “an act of terror” and vowed that the attackers “will feel the full
weight of justice.”
The US leader will attend
a special inter-faith service for the victims at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy
Cross on Thursday morning.
Armed National Guard
troops and police patrolled Boston’s airport, commuter trains and buses and
authorities warned that tight security would last several days.
About 100 of the injured
have already left Boston hospitals but many remain in critical condition and
the city has started emotional tributes to the dead, who include an eight-year-old
boy Martin Richard, a Chinese graduate student at Boston University, Lu Lingzi,
and a woman restaurant manager Krystle Campbell.
About 1,000 people
attended a candlelight vigil in a park near the boy’s home on Tuesday night and
hundreds went to other events in Boston.
Hundreds of students
attended a memorial service for the woman at Boston University on Tuesday
night. Thousands of tributes were posted online on Chinese websites.
A pair of running shoes,
flowers and a key chain were left in front of the university memorial to Martin
Luther King junior for Lu.
Theology student Meghan
Nelson, who placed the tributes, said: “All the theology school students are
wearing running shoes this week. It symbolizes standing together for unity and
running for peace. It’s about solidarity.”
London marathon
organizers announced meanwhile that extra police would be deployed to monitor
security following the Boston attacks.
Source:
Vanguard NG
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