Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, apparently told the FBI that he and his brother had really wanted to plan an attack on July 4th. However, they moved up their plot, according to ABC News, "because they were surprised at how quickly they were able to build functioning explosives."
He also reportedly told the FBI that they made the pressure cooker bombs in the Cambridge apartment of his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed during a police shootout. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was captured after the city of Boston and suburbs were locked down for the day.
The NY Times' law enforcement sources give slightly different information with a suicide attack angle: Tsarnaev told the FBI that they "considered suicide attacks and striking on the Fourth of July as they plotted their deadly assault" but they "ultimately decided to use pressure-cooker bombs and other homemade explosive devices."
The brothers finished building the bombs in Tamerlan’s apartment in Cambridge, Mass., faster than they had anticipated, and so decided to accelerate their attack to the Boston Marathon on April 15, Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts, from July, according to the account that Dzhokhar provided authorities. They picked the finish line of the marathon after driving around the Boston area looking for alternative sites, according to this account.
In addition, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told authorities that he and his brother viewed the Internet sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American cleric who moved to Yemen and was killed in September 2011 by an American drone strike. There is no indication that the brothers communicated with Mr. Awlaki before his death.
Mr. Tsarnaev made his admission on April 21, two days after he was captured while hiding in a boat in a nearby backyard, to specially trained F.B.I. agents who had been waiting outside his hospital room for him to regain consciousness.
The authorities are interested in knowing what connection Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife, Katherine Russell, may have had in building the bombs or helping the brothers (the Times' sources say the female DNA on the bombs doesn't belong to her). Earlier this week, the feds arrested three friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accusing two of conspiracy to obstruct justice (by plotting to dispose of a laptop computer and a backpack containing fireworks belonging to suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) and the other with making false statements to law enforcement officials in a terrorism investigation.
