ABSTRACT
On April 15, 2013, at the finish of the annual Boston Marathon, two pressurecooker bombs were detonated within seconds of each other, leaving three people dead and scores of runners, their family members, and spectators gravely injured. A few days later, a manhunt in the Boston area resulted in the death and arrest of the two immediate perpetrators, Tamerlan Tzarnaev (killed during a chase and shooting with the police) and Dzhokhar Tzarnaev (caught by the police and suffering from multiple wounds), two brothers originally from the Central Asian nation of Dagestan, holding Russian passports, and granted refugee status in the United States in 2002-3. 1 The Boston Marathon bombing quickly resurrected the specter of terrorism on US soil. Within a matter of minutes, US media drew connections between “Terror at the Marathon” and the 9/11 attacks, 2 no matter how different these two events might have been in their execution, points of origin, and immediate effects. In the minds of many Americans, the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001 and now on 4/15/2013, both occurring in highly populated and historically significant East Coast urban centers, were the source of deep shocks at the heart of the nation. On April 15, 2013, media images showcased plumes of smoke, torn structures, and scattered artifacts against a background of city streets and high-rise buildings, inevitably prompting somatic, psychological, and symbolic linkages to the 9/11 attacks.
