Americans accustomed to rigorous security procedures since the 9/11 attacks may have to endure new measures after the Boston Marathon bombings, but experts tell McClatchy Newspapers that no amount of extra precautions can guarantee absolute safety from a determined terrorist. “There is no way that people who run in marathons or people who go to baseball stadiums can be assured that they will be protected from IEDs (improvised explosive devices) 100 percent of the time,” said Dennis Pluchinsky, a former senior State Department terrorism analyst. “Terrorists will always find some holes, some gap (in security) to take advantage of.”
The bombings were the first mass-casualty terrorist attack to take place in the U.S. since Feb. 18, 2010, when an anti-tax protester flew his small plane into the Internal Revenue Service office in Austin, Texas, killing himself and one other person and wounding 15 people. Improved counter-terrorism efforts overseas, security measures, and intelligence sharing between federal, state and local authorities and with other countries have succeeded in thwarting attacks on Americans at home and abroad. Some U.S. officials and independent experts doubt that al Qaeda was directly involved in the Boston bombings, although whoever was responsible may have been incited by jihadist propaganda. The terrorist network's attacks traditionally have been more devastating and have been followed by claims of responsibility.