The April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon are probably the worst act of terrorism on American soil since the 9/11 attacks some 12 years ago. The attack has all the hallmarks of what a terror event is supposed to do: strike innocent people in a highly visible fashion and in a way that makes the event reverberate around the world.

And strike, the bomber or bombers did. Two bombs detonated near the finish line within moments of each other; at the time of this writing, the toll is three dead (one of whom was an eight-year-old boy) and more than 100 injured. Many of the injured lost their legs in the blasts.

The first blast went off in a spectator area right at the finish. The second went off further up the course, but still within close distance of the finish line. Reports after the attack noted that medical personnel were pulling ball bearings out of the victims, indicating that the bombs were clearly designed not to inflict material damage, but personal damage. This was an effort to murder. That the first bomb went off in a way that could have created a traffic jam of other runners, suggests that the timing of the second blast was meant specifically to compound the effects of the first. In other words, this was the work, if not of skilled terrorists, of somebody who clearly did their homework on how to use improvised explosive devices to try to hurt as many people as possible.