A Comparison Of The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing

This paper will examine the ideology, targets, tactics, as well as the government and citizens reactions to the 1996 Centennial Park Olympic Bombing and the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. It will discuss similarities and differences that the two attacks have in common, with one being a domestic attack and the other an international attack. (This event hit close to home for myself due to the fact my father a member of the Indiana National Guard at the time was at the Olympics as part of the security detail for the games.)

When comparing attacks it is imperative that background information is provided on each of the two attacks, so that is where comparing the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta, Georgia, and the

2013 Boston Marathon Bombings will begin. A brief background on the 1996 Olympic Bombing occurred on July 27th, 1996, a week into centennial games. The attack was carried out at a rock concert by the use of a backpack shrapnel bomb that exploded, as people were evacuating the area. The attack caused one casualty and injured another one hundred people. This act was carried out by one man Eric Rudolph, a right wing extremist with ties to the anti-abortion movement at the time. April 15th, 2013 was a perfect spring day for a marathon in the upper northeast. That was until 2:49 pm as the race was well underway, and the winners had already finished the race when the first of two improvised explosive devices exploded at two different locations near the finish line of the race. The second detonated approximately eighteen seconds later a short distance from the first explosion. The explosive devices like the Olympic Bombing were contained inside of a backpack. The explosion claimed three lives that day including that of an eight year old boy, as well as injuring over 260 others. “The attacks were carried out by Chechen-American brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev”. (Massachusetts Government, 2014) During the manhunt for the two brothers they also killed an MIT Police officer in their attempt to flee the Boston area. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and killed by the Boston Police Department and Dzhokhar was captured in the Watertown, Massachusetts neighborhood of Boston. The brothers were found out to be Islamic extremists.
The two attacks have many differences, as well as similarities.

The first thing that was noticed was the tactics used in both attacks. In both attacks the tactic was placing an improvised explosive device (IED) in a large group of people to cause as many casualties as possible. The bomb in Atlanta was similar with the pressure cooker bombs in Boston in a couple of ways. In that both contained shrapnel mainly “nails and screws” (CNN Library, 2016) to cause as many casualties as possible. The second similarity in tactics that both bombs were disguised as backpacks and placed by the bombers in their locations. One tactic that was different between the two attacks was that once the bombs were placed in the case of the Olympic Bombing bomber Eric Rudolph made a call from a pay phone letting them know the bomb would go off in thirty minutes. This was not the case in Boston as the brothers placed the bombs, and simply walked off from the

area.
The attacks in Boston and Atlanta had similarities in the sense of the victims as well. The first thing that was similar was that they were both large crowd gatherings. The goal of Rudolph was to shut down the Olympics, and victims were random innocent people. In Boston, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scribbled a note on the boat he was hiding in during his capture. It stated “Now I don’t like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam, but due to said it is allowed”. (Levenson, 2017) The statement by Tsarnaev eludes that the victims were innocent, and chosen at random. Thus, with neither of the bombings targeting a specific group of people there are not a lot of differences in the victims targeted.
Often the most asked question about a terrorist attack is why or what motivated it to happen.

This is often explained by the ideology of the terrorists. The ideology used by Eric Rudolph in the Olympic Bombings was based around political ideology. “Although Rudolph embraced attitudes and ideology from Christian extremists, militant anti-abortionists, and survivalists, he was not formally a member of any organization, and acted alone from his own convictions”. (Acts of War and Terror, 2006) Rudolph was driven by the anti-abortion movement and committed the act in spite of the U.S. Governments sanctioning of abortion. The Tsarnaev brother’s ideology was completely different than that of Rudolph’s. They used more of a religious ideology involving radicalism of the Islamic Religion. The older of the brothers Tamerlan, “the deceased Boston Marathon Bombing suspect was identified by a foreign government as a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer" whose personality had changed drastically in just a year”. (Tangle and Powers, 2013) These ideologies are similar as they were both in a way protesting against things the U.S. Government had

done.
The response to the Olympic bombing was not as significant as one would think being Pre -September 11th, 2001. The games were continued, and the Olympics did not miss a beat. However, security was increased even more, and especially at the park and other open areas where large crowds could gather. During the Boston Bombing a Presidential Emergency Declaration was declared to “activate a variety of federal public assistance programs to assist in the recovery effort.” (Massachusetts Government, 2014) So, the major difference between the two attacks was there was much more of a reaction by the government in the case of Boston.
One major difference between the two attacks was the way it was portrayed in the media. The Olympic attacks were on television due to the magnitude of the games however, there was no social media like there was in the 2013 attacks. Also, the media played a significant role in the Boston attacks by posting picture of the Tsarnaev Brothers within hours of the attack and the man hunt was then on. Eric Rudolph escaped into mountains of North Carolina after the attack was not caught until May of 2003 almost seven years after the attack occurred. When President Clinton was woken and given the news of the attack in Atlanta, he then “stayed awake much of the night watching live television reports from the scene”. (Cushman Jr., 1996)
The impact that the attacks had on Boston was a major one. The citizens of Boston were ordered to shelter in place and the city essentially shut down for a three days, as over 2000 law enforcement officers bestowed on the city. Many other sports events were cancelled the next day, and it led to the phrase Boston Strong to help unify the city. After a three day man hunt citizens were relieved when they found Dzhokhar in a boat in Watertown Massachusetts. The reaction was not the same to the bombing in Atlanta. The city did not shut down and the games continued, however the security was heightened and visitors were restricted from going into the Olympic Village. This could have played a role on not being able to apprehend Rudolph in the days following the attack.
With the Olympic attack being labeled as domestic terrorism, and the Boston attack being called international terrorism it can be confusing. The main difference between the two is that domestic usually happens on United States soil, and international terrorism occurs outside United States jurisdiction. (Taylor and Swanson, 2016) However, the Boston Bombing was committed by two U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, so what makes it an international attack? Many professionals have argued that it showed both factors of being domestic and international at the same time. The attack did have an international influence coming from radical Islam. The Olympic attack was most certainly domestic terrorism. It was committed by an American against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. It would also be labeled a lone-wolf terrorist attack, as Rudolph acted alone and mainly without any direction from a group. These labels are often created by the ones investigating the attacks usually the government.