Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
A website used by the resistance movement in Russia's North Caucasus has published a statement saying it has no connection with the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon.
Major questions about US security and intelligence services were raised last night after it was revealed that the elder of the two apparent Boston bombers had been investigated as a possible Islamist terrorist two years ago, but was not deemed worthy of further attention.
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Tamerlan Tsarnaev - Google Search
News Reviewed on: 9:15 AM 4/21/2013
Russia asked FBI to investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 – report ...
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20 hours ago – Russia asked the FBI to investigate Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011, a source in US law enforcement told Reuters.'They were set up, FBI followed them for years'- Tsarnaevs' mother to RT
With the 24-hour manhunt for the second suspect of the Boston bombing closed, RT remembers its conversation with the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers, who claimed all along their children were set up.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva maintains her younger son is innocent and like so many of the brothers’ acquaintances, claims they were good, courteous kids and model students – especially the younger 19-year-old Dzhokhar. A US citizen who is presently in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, she revealed to RT some suspicions of her own.
Grief-stricken at the latest developments in the case, Zubeidat expressed her dismay at the allegations, recounting Dzhokhar’s life in the US and talking of his status among his peers and friends: he was an honors student, loved by many of his friends and teachers. And his older brother Tamerlan was a star athlete and student, whose ambition was to one day appear on the US Olympic wrestling team.
But her biggest suspicion surrounding the case was the constant FBI surveillance she said her family was subjected to over the years. She is surprised that having been so stringent with the entire family, the FBI had no idea the sons were supposedly planning a terrorist act.
Grief-stricken at the latest developments in the case, Zubeidat expressed her dismay at the allegations, recounting Dzhokhar’s life in the US and talking of his status among his peers and friends: he was an honors student, loved by many of his friends and teachers. And his older brother Tamerlan was a star athlete and student, whose ambition was to one day appear on the US Olympic wrestling team.
But her biggest suspicion surrounding the case was the constant FBI surveillance she said her family was subjected to over the years. She is surprised that having been so stringent with the entire family, the FBI had no idea the sons were supposedly planning a terrorist act.
Tsarnaev brothers (FBI/AFP Photo)
“They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me…they were telling me that he [the older, 26-y/o Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act! Never ever is this true, my sons are innocent!”
When asked if maybe she didn’t know about some of her sons’ more secret aspirations and dark secrets, she said “That’s impossible. My sons would never keep a secret.”
Finally, she said that if she could speak to her youngest – Dzhokhar, she would tell him, “Save your life and tell the truth, that you haven’t done anything, that this is a set up!”
The suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev
In an interview with Russian television the brothers’ father Anzor Tsarnaev also claimed that they are innocent and somebody might have set them up.
“I’m sure about my children, in their purity. I don’t know what happened and who did this. God knows and he will punish them,” he told Zvezda channel. “Somebody might have set them up. I don’t know who and because of their cowardice killed the boy.”
The father said he was unable to contact his sons or other relatives. “Everything is switched off. I can’t reach my brother there either. I can’t reach anyone! I just want information. Now I fear for my boy, that they will now shoot him dead and then will say 'He had a gun'.”
“I fear for my son, for his life. They should arrest him, bring him, but alive. Justice should investigate who is right and who is wrong,” he said.
Mr Tsarnaev recently spoke to his elder son, Tamerlan [Suspect #1], telling him that he should take care of his younger brother. Speaking of the Boston marathon bombing he told his son “Ok, Thanks to Allah you were not close to there and did not suffer.”
“I remember I even asked “Who could do something like that?”
“We just talked. I asked him about our Dzhokhar [Suspect #2], how was he. I told him, he should help him out and keep an eye on him, so that he studies well. I told him ‘You left school, got married too early, but the kid should finish [his education]’. Because this is life – those who don’t study work a lot and work hard. That’s why I was telling them study”.
Russian 'Alpha' Special Forces team-veteran and vice-president of its International Association, Aleksey Filatov, believes there is more to the case than meets the eye. He emphasizes, firstly, that the origin and religious beliefs of the suspect, along with the specifics of the bombing, have all been carefully pre-meditated and planned by someone within the United States in order to distract the public from the true identity and long-term aims of the actual planners.
“Putting a young Chechen in those shoes was top-notch professionalism in distracting everyone from the true identity and motives of the planner,” he told RT.
“The executors were chosen to confuse the American public and simultaneously untie the White House’s hands in a way that would justify a departure from the rhetoric of non-involvement in military action on foreign territories.”
“Putting a young Chechen in those shoes was top-notch professionalism in distracting everyone from the true identity and motives of the planner,” he told RT.
“The executors were chosen to confuse the American public and simultaneously untie the White House’s hands in a way that would justify a departure from the rhetoric of non-involvement in military action on foreign territories.”
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Russia Distances Itself From Suspects - WSJ
A spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service declined to confirm the statement made to Interfax when contacted Saturday. He said to call back on Monday when the agency should have more information.
Since a high-profile manhunt in Boston shined the spotlight on the two bombing suspects, Russia has started distancing itself from the Tsarnaev brothers, whose parents are currently in Dagestan, a republic in the south of Russia that borders Chechnya.
"Their presence in Russia is minimal," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Wall Street Journal on Saturday morning. Ramzan Kadyrov, the current President of Republic of Chechnya in southern Russia, decried "any attempt" to connect the brothers with Chechnya in a statement Friday night. "They grew up in the United States. Their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. One must look for the root of the evil in America," Mr. Kadyrov said. The Federal Security Service spokesman on Saturday immediately pointed out that one of the alleged bombers was a U.S. citizen.
The comments come a day after a U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal that the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of the Russian government but found no suspicious information and closed the matter. The U.S. official made the comments after the brothers' mother started giving interviews saying that FBI officials had been in touch with her and her son in the past. The Russian Federal Security Service spokesman said he had no immediate information about Russian authorities contacting the FBI.
The Tsarnaev family's connection with Russia is complex because of the intricate patchwork of ethnicities that comprises Russia and the former Soviet Union.
In an interview, the brothers' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said he is ethnically Chechen and his ex-wife, the boys' mother, is ethnically Avar, one of the main groups in Dagestan. Chechnya and Dagestan are neighboring republics that fall within Russia's borders in the south of the country. Their populations generally aren't ethnically Russian and speak native languages other than Russian. But they are citizens of Russia, and Russian is the lingua franca among the various republics along the country's southern border.
The brothers' time spent living in Russia was limited. The family lived in Chechnya for a year in 1994 and later lived in Dagestan for a few years from 1999 to the early 2000s, Mr. Tsarnaev said. Otherwise they lived mostly in Kyrgyzstan before moving to the U.S. about 10 years ago, he said.
Though he is ethnically Chechen, Anzor Tsarnaev grew up in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan because his parents were deported there in the Stalin era alongside many other ethnic Chechens.
Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com
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Inquiry on Bombing Shifts to Suspect’s Russian Trip
By ERIC SCHMITT, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ELLEN BARRY
With one suspect dead and the other lying wounded in a hospital, the investigation into the Boston bombings turned to their motives and a trip one of them took to Chechnya and Dagestan.
The Boston bombings have led to increased cooperation between Washington and Moscow, a jarring shift coming amid weeks of rancor over American criticism of Russia’s human rights record. Presidents Obama and Vladimir V. Putin spoke by telephone late Friday night, in a conversation initiated by the Russian side, the Kremlin announced. The Kremlin’s statement said both leaders expressed “the building of close coordination between Russian and American intelligence services in the battle with global terrorism.”
Nevertheless, there were glaring questions about the case, among them how Tamerlan had escaped scrutiny.
A Russian intelligence official told the Interfax news service on Saturday that Russia had not been able to provide the United States with “operatively significant” information about the Tsarnaev brothers, “because the Tsarnaev brothers had not been living in Russia.”
Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist who specializes in Russia’s security services, said he believed that Tamerlan might have attracted the attention of Russian intelligence because of the video clips he had posted under his own name, some of which were included on a list of banned materials by the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B.
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Legal Questions Riddle Boston Case
By ETHAN BRONNER, CHARLIE SAVAGE and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The issues include a debate over where the suspect might be tried and whether the bombings were a crime or an act of war.
A New Argument for Immigration Foes
By TRIP GABRIEL
Some opponents of an immigration overhaul are pointing to the Boston attack as cause for concern.
Scenes From a Week of Terror
Boston’s tumultuous week began with the excitement of a race and ended with the tension of a manhunt.
RELATED COVERAGE
F.B.I. Interview Led Homeland Security to Hold Up Citizenship for One Brother
By JULIA PRESTON
Department of Homeland Security officials decided in recent months not to grant an application for American citizenship by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, after a routine background check revealed that he had been interviewed in 2011 by the F.B.I., federal officials said on Saturday.
Mr. Tsarnaev died early Friday after a shootout with the police, and officials said that at the time of his death, his application for citizenship was still under review and was being investigated by federal law enforcement officials.
It had been previously reported that Mr. Tsarnaev’s application might have been held up because of a domestic abuse episode. But the officials said that it was the record of the F.B.I. interview that threw up red flags and halted, at least temporarily, Mr. Tsarnaev’s citizenship application. Federal law enforcement officials reported on Friday that the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Tsarnaev in January 2011 at the request of the Russian government, which suspected that he had ties to Chechen terrorists.
The officials pointed to the decision to hold up that application as evidence that his encounter with the F.B.I. did not fall through the cracks in the vast criminal and national security databases that the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. review as a standard requirement for citizenship. The application, which Mr. Tsarnaev presented on Sept. 5, also prompted “additional investigation” of him this year by federal law enforcement agencies, according to the officials. They declined to say how far that examination had progressed or what it covered.
The handling of Mr. Tsarnaev’s application could be crucial for the Obama administration in the Senate debate that began this week over a bipartisan bill, which the president supports, for a sweeping immigration overhaul. Some Republicans skeptical of the bill have said they will watch the Boston bombings investigation to see if it reveals security lapses in the immigration system that should be closed before Congress proceeds to other parts of the bill, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The record of the F.B.I. interview was enough to cause Homeland Security to hold up Mr. Tsarnaev’s application. He presented those papers several weeks after he returned from a six-month trip overseas, primarily to Russia, and only six days after his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, had his own citizenship application approved. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in custody and is in serious condition in a hospital.
Late last year, Homeland Security officials contacted the F.B.I. to learn more about its interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, federal law enforcement officials said. The F.B.I. reported its conclusion that he did not present a threat.
At that point, Homeland Security officials did not move to approve the application nor did they deny it, but they left it open for “additional review.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s record also showed that he had been involved in an episode of domestic violence in 2009. His father, Anzor, said in an interview on Friday in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where he lives, that Tamerlan had an argument with a girlfriend and that he “hit her lightly.”
Under immigration law, certain domestic violence offenses can disqualify an immigrant from becoming an American citizen, and perhaps expose him to deportation. But the Homeland Security review found that while Mr. Tsarnaev was arrested, he was not convicted in the episode. The law requires a serious criminal conviction in a domestic violence case for officials to initiate deportation, federal officials said.
Both Tsarnaev brothers came to the United States and remained here legally under an asylum petition in 2002 by their father, who claimed he feared for his life because of his activities inChechnya. Both sons applied for citizenship after they had been living here as legal permanent residents for at least five years, as the law requires.William K. Rashbaum and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.
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Business Insider - 17 hours ago
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FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev after 2011 tip
By | Associated Press – 19 hrs ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Russian FSB intelligence security service told the FBI in early 2011 about information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, was a follower of radical Islam, two law enforcement officials said Saturday.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout, and his younger brother was captured alive. They were identified by authorities and relatives as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade.
According to an FBI news release issued Friday night, a foreign government said that based on its information, Tsarnaev was a strong believer and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the U.S. for travel to the Russian region to join unspecified underground groups.
The FBI did not name the foreign government, but the two law enforcement officials identified the FSB as the provider of the information to one of the FBI's field offices and also to FBI headquarters in Washington. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.
The FBI said that in response, it interviewed Tsarnaev and relatives, and did not find any domestic or foreign terrorism activity. The FBI said it provided the results in the summer of 2011. The FBI also said that it requested but did not receive more specific or additional information from the foreign government.
The bureau added that in response to the request, it checked U.S. government databases and other information to look for such things as derogatory telephone communications, possible use of online sites associated with the promotion of radical activity, associations with other persons of interest, travel history and plans and education history.
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Associated Press writers Adam Goldman and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.
FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev after 2011 tip - Yahoo! News
news.yahoo.com/fbi-interviewed-tamerlan-tsarna... - United StatesShare
20 hours ago – From Yahoo! News: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Russian FSB intelligence security service told the FBI in early 2011 about information that ...