Excerpt:
President Obama, responding to the Boston Marathon attack, says, "We will find whoever harmed our citizens, and we will bring them to justice." The Boston survivors have good grounds to doubt that claim, but at least the president is describing the attack as an "act of terrorism."
The weapon terrorists deployed in Boston is a pressure cooker, packed with nails, ball bearings and other shrapnel. The cooker gives the timed explosion incredible force to kill and maim at random, the hallmark of terrorism. The pressure cooker bomb is a favorite of al-Qaida, which described how to make them in an online magazine article titled "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." Islamic militants also produced a chapter on pressure cooker bombs in The Lone Mujahed Pocketbook.
According to the Associated Press, in February, a pressure cooker bomb killed five in Afghanistan. Terrorists deployed a pressure cooker in a May 2010 attempted bombing of Times Square. Six Pakistani employees of a Christian aid group fell victim to a pressure cooker bomb, detonated remotely. Similar attacks took place in France, India and Nepal. Solo jihadists are encouraged to target "crowded sports arenas" and "annual social events." So the Boston Marathon was an ideal target, and the pressure cooker bomb an ideal weapon.