Thwarted Israeli bus blast similar to Boston bombings

Jerusalem - Investigators probing the December 22 bus Bombing in Bat Yam now say that the explosive device detonated was similar to those used in the Boston Marathon Bombings back in April.

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL reports that the device -a pressure cooker filled with nails and screws-closely resembles the same ones Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are alleged to have assembled from instructions placed on an al-Qaeda website.

Officials also announced that 14 arrests have been made associated with the Bat Yam bombing, and that through “intensive intelligence work” investigators were able to crack a terror cell.

Thanks to the alertness of a bus passenger, no one was injured in the Bat Yam attack, but the bus was destroyed when the device unexpectedly went off while bomb squad experts were attempting to diffuse it.

According to the report, four of the suspects are Islamic Jihad operatives from Bethlehem who had subsequent plans to execute a larger bombing attack in Tel Aviv.

Yusef Salamah, 22, Shehada Ta’amri, 24, Hamdi Ta’amri, 21 and Sami Harimi, 20, are the four operatives named in the report.

Officials say both Harimi brothers have previously served time in Israeli prisons, and that the younger, Sami, is a Palestinian Authority police officer currently enrolled in officer training school in Jericho.