Boston bombers: FBI hunting 12-strong
terrorist “sleeper cell” linked to brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
21 Apr 2013 00:01
The FBI was last night hunting a 12-strong
terrorist “sleeper cell” linked to the Boston marathon bomb brothers.
Police believe Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
were specially trained to carry out the devastating attack.
More than 1,000 FBI operatives were last night
working to track down the cell and arrested a man and two women 60 miles from
Boston in the hours before Dzhokhar’s dramatic capture after a bloody
shootout on Friday.
A source close to the investigation said: “We
have no doubt the brothers were not acting alone. The devices used to
detonate the two bombs were highly sophisticated and not the kind of thing
people learn from Google.
“They were too advanced. Someone gave the
brothers the skills and it is now our job to find out just who they were.
Agents think the sleeper cell has up to a dozen members and has been waiting
several years for their day to come.”
A specialist team of CIA and FBI interrogators
was yesterday flown to a Boston hospital to grill wounded Dzhokhar, 19, about
the secret group. The University of Massachusetts student was caught on
Friday after hiding out in a boat parked in a garden in locked down Watertown
the day after a gun battle with police left his 26-year-old brother and a
rookie cop dead.
Dzhokhar is said to have run his brother over
as he escaped in a stolen car while Tamerlan lay handcuffed on the ground.
They were carrying six bombs with them at the time, three of which exploded,
as well as a handgun and rifle. The devices were thought to be pipe bombs.
Last night Dzhokhar – badly wounded but alive
– lay handcuffed to his hospital bed under armed guard. The other three arrested
in the port of New Bedford are also believed to be of college age.
