About Article

This article queries the difference between experiencing an urban terror attack and experiencing war in an urban war zone. The case considered is the Boston marathon bombings of April 2013 and the lockdown that followed, a first in the USA. Official responses to the bombings exceeded militarised urban policing strategies in ways that arguably turned Boston into an urban war zone. To consider that proposition, I juxtapose events in Boston with US war operations around Al Tafar Iraq in 2004, as described by Kevin Powers in The Yellow Birds. I also consider responses to the lockdown by people in the area of the bombings, people waiting for delayed transportation during the lockdown and experts on anti-terrorism.