Posted on 04/19/2013 6:51:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with Boston police earlier this morning, perhaps killed by bullets, his own IED, or the fact that his brother Dzhokar reportedly drove over him in order to plow through a police barricade after the shootout. He will live on in a photo essay taken when he competed in Golden Glove boxing, thanks to photographer Johannes Hirn, linked by an alert Dave Weigel a few minutes ago. The accompanying interview raised at least a yellow flag about the isolation of Tsarnaev from his community in the essay titled “Will Box for Passport”:
Tamerlan, who studies at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and wants to become an engineer, took the semester off from school to train for the competition.
Tamerlan fled Chechnya with his family because of the conflict in the early 90s, and lived for years in Kazakhstan before getting to the United States as a refugee.
Originally from Chechnya, but living in the United States since five years, Tamerlan says: “I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them.”
If he wins enough fights… Tamerlan says he could be selected for the US Olympic team and be naturalized American. Unless his native Chechnya becomes independent, Tamerlan says he would rather compete for the United States than for Russia.
Tamerlan says he doesn’t drink or smoke anymore: “God said no alcohol.” A muslim, he says: “There are no values anymore,” and worries that “people can’t control themselves.”
Accordingly, Weigel and others claim that this is Tsarnaev’s YouTube channel (which I already posted in the main thread). It’s not confirmed, and there may well be more than one Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but if it’s his, a certain theme emerges almost immediately. It’s odd that Tsarnaev wanted to compete for the US rather than Kazakhstan, perhaps, where he might have fit in better; if this really is his YouTube account, it’s even more odd.
Update: Some are claiming that this is Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Amazon wish list. I’d approach this with a grain of salt, but again if so, it’s certainly interesting. Quite a few items on making fake IDs, but they’ve all been on the list for almost six years. Not sure if I’m buying this.
Update: More from the AP on the background of both brothers, including this tidbit, emphasis mine:
In May of 2011, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, then a senior at a prestigious high school, was awarded a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge, Mass., to pursue higher education. Now, Tsarnaev is on the run, described as “armed and dangerous” and suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing. …
According to the website spotcrime.com, Tamerlan was arrested for domestic violence in July 2009, after assaulting his girlfriend.
He was an amateur boxer, listed as a competitor in a National Golden Gloves competition in 2009.
Assuming that boxing profile preceded the arrest, that might be an inflection point for Tamerlan’s radicalization.
Update: Reuters reports that the younger brother’s website promoted Islamist websites:
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev posted links to Islamic websites and others calling for Chechen independence on what appears to be his page on a Russian language social networking site.
Abusive comments in Russian and English were flooding onto Tsarnaev’s page on VK, a Russian-language social media site, on Friday after he was identified as a suspect in the bombing of the Boston marathon. …
His “World view” is listed as “Islam” and his “Personal priority” is “career and money”.
He has posted links to videos of fighters in the Syrian civil war and to Islamic web pages with titles like “Salamworld, my religion is Islam” and “There is no God but Allah, let that ring out in our hearts”.
I guess young Americans are much smarter than I give them credit for, even in Boston.
Holy Sh*t, he's really in trouble now.
RE: Holy Sh*t, he’s really in trouble now.
He’s already gone to be with the Vestal Virgins.
He doesn’t understand people not being liars all the time
More likely, Helen Thomas lookalikes!
no body likes me, everybody hates me
I think I’ll kill people......
The local news now is excusing their actions because they came from such a violent community in Russia, that’s how they learned to deal with trouble.
Hell, I’m American and I don’t have any friends either, but I’m not blowing up women and children because of it.
Right back at ya’, dead Chechnyan Muslim terrorist. Don’t understand you, have no dead Chechnyan Muslim friends.
Sounds like a typical Morrissey song.
They’ll take away his guns...
I don;t think that’s excusing their actions, I think that’s a pretty strong case for stopping immigration of these sick bastards.
“calling for Chechen independence”
These people should stay there and fight for independence.
What his ‘profession’ is, where he worked, where his income/money from,
If he and his brother turned out to be sucking on gubmint teats, I (and millions of Americans) would be furious.
In a rational world, yes, but we are talking about reporters.
Hm. Worth looking into. I'll have to do some research.
he probably could not understand Americans because up in MA they were even too far left for him, tell the truth I don;t understand many of them up there, hell even looking at the TV I see freaks in the background, men looking girlie, women with short hair and looking boyish.
Men marrying men, women marrying women, men inmates getting a sex change, freak homo parades, the left wing tolerance and diversity crap.
Yep I seem to be the same as him if he refers to the Americans as just those up in MA
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