House Homeland Security Committee Chairman: Bombers Were Trained

We might know for sure already if Eric Holder’s Justice Department hadn’t set the wheels of justice turning, forcing a hearing where the surviving bomber was read his Miranda rights.

The Hill:

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said on Sunday that he believes the Boston bombers had sophisticated training.

“And the question is where is that trainer or trainers?” McCaul said on Fox News Sunday. “Are they overseas in the Chechen region or are they in the United States?”

McCaul cited the sophistication of the pressure cooker bombs and the fact that similar devices have been used in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He said the FBI has cast a “wide net” in the hunt for a possible trainer.

“I think the experts all agree that there is someone who did train these two individuals,” McCaul said.

Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are believed to have detonated two homemade bombs packed with shrapnel at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and maiming dozens.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed after a shootout with police, but his younger brother has been charged in the attacks. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has said he and his brother were radicalized on the internet and suggested they learned how to build the bombs from instructions in an al Qaeda magazine, according to reports.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) agreed with McCaul, saying the bombings were “more advanced” than what would have been possible with Internet research.

McCaul also said he believes the mother of the two suspected bombers played a “role in the radicalization process” and called her a “person of interest,” but stopped short of claiming she was involved in the bombing.

McCaul isn’t the only media source to point to the relative sophistication of the bomb as proof that the bombers didn’t act alone. Indeed, it appears that the FBI — despite White House assurances that there was no foreign connection involved in the plot — is concentrating on finding additional suspects in the case.

“There could be a wider conspiracy,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What I found astounding is that right out of the box, U.S. officials anonymously are saying there’s no foreign connection to this case. When in fact, the FBI just began their investigation in this case.”

Given the extensive network of Chechen terrorist cells across Europe, it is not a stretch to imagine a cell here in the U.S. Tamerlan Tsarnaev could easily have been put in touch with the cell when he was in Dagestan for six months last yaer. Or he may have made contact during his radicalization. The point being, McCaul is not blowing smoke. And the FBI continues to look into the possibility of a wider conspiracy despite the White House wanting the whole idea of a terror cell of Chechens in America to just go away.