Boston Suspects Planned Times Square Attack: Bloomberg

Business | April 26, 2013, Friday // 07:40
Bulgaria: Boston Suspects Planned Times Square Attack: Bloomberg The two brothers intended to drive to New York and detonate those explosives in Times Square, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said. Photo by EPA/BGNES

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the Boston Marathon bombing suspects planned to detonate the rest of their explosives in Times Square.

Mayor Bloomberg said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect, had told the FBI he and his brother "spontaneously" decided that New York would be next.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters the suspects had a pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs.

Three people died and over 260 were wounded in the 15 April Boston attack.

"Last night we were informed by the FBI that the surviving attacker revealed that New York City was next on their list of targets," Bloomberg said during Thursday's news conference at city hall.

"He and his older brother intended to drive to New York and detonate those explosives in Times Square."

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings, told investigators that he and his brother decided to bomb Times Square as they talked the night of April 18 in a Mercedes SUV they'd just carjacked, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

The 19-year-old initially told investigators from a Boston hospital bed that he and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had talked about going to New York to "party."

Then he offered a new account during a second round of questioning Sunday evening into Monday, during which Kelly said Dzhokhar was "a lot more lucid" than the first time he was interviewed.

The brothers had five pipe bombs and a "pressure-cooker bomb" -- the latter similar to the bombs used in the Boston blasts -- with them in the SUV that they could have used in New York, Kelly said.

Instead, their plan "fell apart" when the SUV ran low on fuel in the Boston area and the Tsarnaevs ordered the driver to pull into a gas station, Kelly said. The driver escaped during the refueling, he said, and police subsequently caught up with the Tsarnaevs -- first in a shootout after which 26-year-old Tamerlan died, then by capturing Dzhokhar on Friday.

"We don't know that we would have been able to stop the terrorists had they arrived here from Boston," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "We're just thankful that we didn't have to find out that answer."

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