I would just like to say that Arabs are Caucasian. And they don't all have beards.

[Stinky The Clown]

They don't all wear white robes or turbans. Some wear baseball caps. Some wear them backwards. So do some right wingers and some left wingers and some religious people.

I say all that not to imply in *any* way the bombers are or are not Arabs. It is simply to say to anyone who wanted them to be Arabs, the pictures are inconclusive. It is also simply to say that anyone who wanted them to be "white" the pictures are inconclusive. Same for those who wanted them to right wingers or left wingers or religious fanatics of some sort.



I also think the FBI will have these guys soon enough . . . . I'll wait before laying blame.

[HockeyMom]

1. They do appear to be YOUNG and MALE

That is definitely is the most common factor.

[Wait Wut]

5. That's the one thing that sticks out the most.

The baseball cap guy seems so young. Other than that, I couldn't tell you what race they were. Human, but of the subspecies, obviously. How do you walk around with people, look into their eyes, and intentionally blow them up?

[slackmaster]

6. Yes, young males are responsible for far more than their share of violent crime.

It's an effect of testosterone poisoning. Most of us learn how to cope with it in a process called "growing up."

[YoungDemCA]

16. As a young man...

..I have to agree with you, sad to say.

[jessie04]

2. They look like they are in their early 20s.

And they can build a bomb by themselves??

I think they had some help.

[gcomeau]

3. Are we forgetting the internet exists? -eom

[gollygee]

4. You don't think people in their early 20s could build a bomb?

I disagree with that.

[jessie04]

11. Sure thats possible.

But to time it 12 seconds later?
with some electronic board?

maybe but its hard to believe they got lucky.

[gollygee]

13. You don't think people in their early 20s can do computery stuff?

Aren't there tons of hackers and stuff in that age group? Why wouldn't someone of that age be able to do it?

[jessie04]

20. Its possible sure but ...

they are smart enough to build a bomb but not smart enough to realize they are going to be filmed ??

i dont know.

[Jennicut]

17. I think youth helps in anything technological, even

with bombs. Not surprised by the age at all, if they are the ones that did it.

[FreeState]

18. Both the founders of Apple and Microsoft were early 20s and building

much more sophisticated devices.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

21. Are you joking?

They weren't working on cold fusion here. Someone can be 22 and already graduated college with a degree in engineering, chemistry, etc.

[FarCenter]

22. The battery recovered was from a radio controlled toy car battery pack

Most likely they used the guts from a readily available toy radio controlled car as the detonator in the pressure cooker and set it off by turning on and pressing a button on the RC controller.

With gunpowder in a pressure cooker all you need to do is cause the battery to short through a fine wire in the gunpowder.

[haele]

28. My brother and his friends made rockets and bombs when they were in their early teens.

Just to go "boom" in a field where trees had been cut and still needed to be cleared; one of the fathers knew how to make fireworks along with model rocketry and would supervise them to make sure no one lost fingers. This was back in the mid-1970's; my brother and his friends was around 14.

They learned how to use kitchen timers for the fertilizer-in-a-feed-bag bombs they made to blow up old stumps and clear large rocks in the ground so they wouldn't have to worry about getting clear in time if they were dealing with a long-fuse to that could get screwed by Pacific Northwest weather.

Didn't make them terrorists, in fact, it gave them a lot of respect for chemestry and the power of common household items when used "improperly".

After a few weeks and a half acre of field finally cleared of stumps and large rocks, most of them decided soccer was more fun and never went back.

It doesn't exactly take being a rocket scientist to know how to make a bomb. Just access to the internet and the materials.

Haele

[Marrah_G]

7. I think alot of kids could build one if they wanted too

The internet is full of this sort of information.

I have little doubt my own son would be able to, his brother, a year younger, probably not.

[octothorpe]

8. Why couldn't they?

[slackmaster]

9. Surely you jest.

Everything needed to make a bomb of that type can be bought at a Target or Walmart store.

[magical thyme]

10. yes, there are people in their 20s capable of building bombs

The instructions are available online and the ingredients not that hard to come by.

[jessie04]

15. Maybe but they got awfully lucky.

Some talking head said that those kind of bombs are not always that reliable.

[pinboy3niner]

14. You might be surprised by what 8th graders can accomplish in science fair projects

And at 20 I was leading a combat Infantry rifle platoon in Vietnam, and even the youngest guys in the platoon were conversant in explosives and claymore mines.

[justiceischeap]

27. If you go on any file sharing site (which I've never done Agent Mike), you can find

the Anarchists Cookbook available for download. Inside that publication are the plans to build this exact bomb. There is also a Taliban released "magazine" that has the same schematics for the same thing (that they probably got from the Anarchists Cookbook). If you can solder and follow directions, you can build this bomb. And if the bomb is detonated remotely, all the guys have to do is sync their watches (or smartphones) and set off the bombs at a planned time.

[jessie04]

29. You may be right. nt

[fitman]

35. I was rebuilding complex

automotive automatic transmissions in my uncles shop at age 14-15

[Chan790]

37. I made far more complex bombs when I was 13.

Minus the schrapnel. Used to take them out into the woods and toss them off the cliff to watch the giant fireballs or blow up abandoned rusted-out cars in the junkyard. I daresay that's borderline-normal where I grew up.

The instructions are in the internet and in many libraries and if you have some creativity and the ability to read between the lines most 6th grade science books. I got them from an older friend. Exploratory bomb-making is unfortunately a pastime of teenaged boys in some rural parts of the country. Other things I learned in backwoods chem-lab: napalm, thermite, stink bombs, smoke bombs, pipe bombs, concussive (exploding) slingshot ammo, rudimentary land-mines, pitch for flaming arrows, homemade fireworks...and despite a lack of interest (non-weapons grade) ricin and phosgene are not out of the realm of capabilities of your average preteen. None of these things are terribly difficult. There's about a 90% likelihood that the means to blow your entire neighborhood sky-high are under your kitchen sink if you know how to mix them in the right proportions.

We'd probably have more interest in STEM courses if we taught the less-harmful of these things in middle-school science class. I hated science class...I was probably most of the way through college before I realized my after-school hobby at 13 was science.

[Schema Thing]

12. if I'm betting and I'm allowed to hedge, 95% American, 5% chance the perps are foreign

I will be VERY surprised if the tea leaves are lying.

[Spider Jerusalem]

36. I'd flip those numbers.

The one in the white hat? Very noticeably bowlegged. To a degree that I can't recall ever seeing among anyone in the US (unless it was the result of an injury). That sort of bowleggedness is the result of rickets or some other childhood health issue (and rickets? Pretty much unknown in the States because of vitamin D fortification of milk).

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

19. Probably very safe to say they're not Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or B'hai or even Jewish

Christian or Muslim seem to be the TERRORISTS in the world.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

23. Hindus can't be terrorists?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmer_Dargah_attack


Hindu nationalism can be brutal.

[FarCenter]

25. Hindus orginated the use of the explosive vest in suicide bombings; Jews bombed the King David Hotel

The use of the explosive belt or vest originated with, and was perfected by the Tamil separatists of Sri Lanka called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_belt

The King David Hotel bombing was an attack carried out on July 22, 1946 by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization the Irgun on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.[1][2][3] 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

And more recently, a number of bombings of Iranian scientists.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

26. IN AMERICA

Yes, Manachim Begin was a terrorist against the British to get them out... Hindu's as well.

The British Empire....

... not American soil.

[Fumesucker]

30. Your words verbatim

Christian or Muslim seem to be the TERRORISTS in the world.

You said "in the world", not "in America".

[Bolo Boffin]

24. There is still very little information for the general public to go on.

Waiting to lay blame is the wisest course here.

[jsr]

31. They look like well-fed North Korean operatives to me

[haele]

32. Me, I'm expecting dissatisfied young people who want to be important.

No matter what they think they are fighting for - if they have a cause at all, it comes down to the fact that deep down, they feel they're not respected enough, and setting off a bomb makes them someone to be reckoned with.

That's the singular truth to any activist for any cause, positive or negative. They have time on their hands and feel they have nothing left to lose.

I was a kid living in the U district of Seattle when "radical students" set off large bombs twice/three times? (that I remember) at UW buildings after hours to protest Vietnam, or to fight for the various rights or causes they thought weren't being seriously addressed in the late 1960's. It was pipe bombs then - not much different than the pressure cooker bombs now.
The Boston bombings did not feel like a new situation at all to me.

Haele

[Hekate]

33. Middle Easterners have a wide range of "ethnic" appearances...

... especially in places where, historically, many different tribes have passed through and/or dwelt. Since discrete groups tend to marry among themselves, these traits remain distinct. So ... some are white, some are brown, some look Asian, and so on and so on.

I agree. The photos so far are pretty ambiguous.

Part of me so much wants them to be American, just because we have so many hate-groups of our own anyway, and because I really, really, really don't want the warmongers to push the country into yet another war.

What a bloody mess.

[doublethink]

38. Quote ...

Middle Easterners have a wide range of "ethnic" appearances... end quote.

Ha and Americans (the melting pot of the world from way back) don't? Too funny. But you carry on. Peace.

[Hekate]

39. Where did I say that, while pointing out that America is not the only melting pot?

[doublethink]

40. Whatever dude, I just want these guys caught no mater ethnicity, nationality or motive. hugs.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

41. You caught that one too!

To some people, American means white people.

[JVS]

34. But my political axe grinding can't wait until we know who they are!