Hi. Terrorism professor here. If you're wondering why I haven't commented on today's attempted bombings, it's because we don't know enough yet. The only thing I can say with confidence is some of you speculating and accusing are crawling out onto limbs that'll get sawed off soon.
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Enough public info now for early analysis of the attempted bombings. THREAD--Will update as more info becomes public. First, this fits the definition of terrorism: Non-combatant targets, violent (at least one device confirmed active), almost certainly political. 1/x
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Terrorism, by definition, is political. By contrast, criminal violence is for personal reasons. Violence by drug traffickers trying to make money, angry person seeking revenge, etc. aren't terrorism. 2/x
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Targeting a political figure is not necessarily terrorism. For example, Jared Loughner targeted Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed a judge. But he was schizophrenic and attacked Giffords because he believed she snubbed him at a rally years ago. Personal, not terrorism. 3/x
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But simultaneously attacking multiple political figures (Clintons, Obamas, Soros, John Brennan and others) indicates a clear political motive. That makes it terrorism. And at least some of the bombs have the same design, which indicates they have the same maker. 4/x
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Nicholas Grossman Retweeted Jim Acosta
Here's photos of the bomb sent to CNN. A few things jump out: 1) No postmark. Packages sent through the mail are required to have a postmark on the side with the address. Could be an error, but likely indicates package hand-delivered, not mailed. 5/xhttps://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1055147149158219778 …
Nicholas Grossman added,
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Replying to @NGrossman81
[Good points. I realize I'm contradicting my previous postulate, but they're just paths of analysis, not held beliefs.] Hand delivered would require multiple actors given geographic distribution... which would require coordination to deliver in the timeframe.
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Replying to @labboypro @NGrossman81
Thus causing some conflict with "single maker" theory. Of course, it could be single maker who distributes to delivery team. Or multiple makers closely following single design plans. Or... specific device details we won't have access to could sort a lot of this out.
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Clearly, we need to know more. But I take your point. It's easy to get a package delivered by courier in NYC rather than by mail, but if there are other packages in locations far from NYC that didn't go through the mail but arrived today, that suggests multiple people involved.
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