Posted on 04/19/2013 10:37:56 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan, 26 years old, and 19-year-old Jokhar, have been accused of carrying out the bombing at the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15. Tamerlan has died from injuries sustained from a shootout with police on Friday, April 19. While, as of the publication of this article, the younger brother, Jokhar, is still at large.
The Tsarnaev family used to reside in Kyrgyzstan. They probably ended up in Kyrgyzstan after mass deportation of Chechens from the North Caucasus in 1944. Today, there are approximately 20,000 ethnic Chechens still residing in Kyrgyzstan. Shortly before the onset of the second Russian-Chechen war in September 1999, the Tsarnaev family moved to their homeland in Chechnya. After the war began in 1999, they moved to Dagestan, having apparently become refugees. The fact that they resided in Makhachkala and not in Khasavyurt, as most other ethnic Chechens in the republic, indicates that they had the financial means to live in the capital of Dagestan, which is quite expensive. They also had relatives in the city and were able to send their children to one of the best schools in Makhachkala, School #1. The younger brother, Jokhar Tsarnaev, went to this school only for one year where he completed the first grade (http://www.zman.com/news/2013/04/19/149396.html).
Subsequently, the family was divided as the father, Anzor, stayed in Makhachkala, while the rest of the family started looking for ways to emigrate from the North Caucasus. His mother, Zubeidat, had four children: two sons and two daughters, who managed to emigrate legally to the United States. Once in the US, she received permanent residence for herself and her children. The mother’s first name, Zubeidat, suggests she was of Dagestani origin and that is probably why the family moved to Dagestan in the first place.
Having settled in the Boston area, the Tsarnaevs tried to adapt to their new home. The elder brother, Tamerlan, received a degree in engineering and was a boxer, who reportedly dreamed of competing in sporting events under the US flag. Tamerlan received US resident status in 2007 (http://lenta.ru/news/2013/04/19/anzor/).
The second brother, 19-year-old Jokhar, had only just begun to attend college. On his Internet page of the online social network VK.com, he described his views and also listed several groups of which he was a member. Jokhar was a member of three Muslim groups, but none of the groups could be described as terrorist or jihadist; they rather provided information about Islam. One of the groups, for instance, Salamword collected funds for people suffering with cancer. The second group, Islam.Muslims.Islam, simply spread photographs of mosques from around the world. The third group, called Lya ‘iLyaha’iLla-Pust Zvuchit V Nashikh Serdtsakh, does nothing besides quoting Muslim hadiths.
In light of preliminary information about the Tsarnaevs, there is not appear to be much, if any, indication that Jokhar had any connection to jihadist groups or sympathized with the most well-known terrorist organization in the North Caucasus called the Caucasus Emirate, or any other similar groups. On the contrary, in one of his blog entries, he laments having no American friends, having lived in the country for so long. All of his friends were from the former Soviet Union.
Another surprising piece of evidence suggests that Jokhar had accessed his webpage at 3 o’clock Boston time, but did not leave any comments. It was unclear whether it was AM or PM time (http://vk.com/id160300242?z=tag160300242). The bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line were detonated at approximately 2:50 PM, local time.
The father of the two brothers from Makhachkala reckons that his children were framed and that his son Jokhar was like an angel (http://lenta.ru/news/2013/04/19/anzor/). Friends of the brothers describe them as ordinary American guys.
In any case, the Boston police already have made a mistake in their preliminary analysis of the brothers, stating that the suspects may have received martial skills, including the ability to make Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Chechnya. They were not present in Chechnya, either during the first war (1994-1995) or during the second war in Chechnya that started in September 1999. The brothers would not have been able to receive any type of fighting or military experience because of their age. Their family emigrated to the US when the eldest brother was only 16. Taking into account that before their move to the US they had lived in Russia for two years and prior to that they had resided for one year in Dagestan, it is hard to see their connection to militants operating in Chechnya or elsewhere in the North Caucasus.
However in the latest report on WaPo, I noticed the following:
‘Also Friday, the FBI confirmed that its agents in Boston had interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of a foreign government. A law enforcement official said the request came from the Russian government, concerned about Tsarnaev’s potential ties to Chechen terrorists. But, after that interview, the FBI did not follow him further, officials said.’
.....which seems to suggest that despite their ages, there were some obvious links - to the Russians, anyway, then missed or just ignored our end. I doubt the Russian government makes requests such as this to the FBI on a routine basis or without some kind of evidence to support it.
More and more, it’s looking like these guys are the Muslim equivalent of James Holmes or the Columbine killers, spree killers with no religious motive, except these Chechens were slightly less indiscriminate.
Yes after their ilk collaborated with the nazis. I guess they danced with the wrong devil (Stalin being the other one) like their brethren the Bosnian Muslims who, while the Orthodox Serbs formed a strong resistance against the Nazis, formed 2 SS divisions to Jihad Nazi style in WW II.
I may be wrong, but my impression is that the Russian mentality is that they will ask for your papers not because you're suspicious, but just because they can make you comply. We get some of that here, but it's pervasive in Russia, in a way that had nothing to do with Bolshevism.
Quite possibly, in Russia. But this was a request made to our FBI, whom they can’t in any way ‘make comply’ - and have no reason to forward such a request to, unless there is a genuine security concern (to themselves, possibly, as much as to us) behind it.
Frickin circus clowns...
Actually it’s looking less and less like that.
On a side-note, while I partially agree with the gist of what you say re Russian mentality of ‘asking for papers because just they can make you comply’ (though that comment isn’t really relevant to what I wrote) - it’s worth mentioning that I spent 3 years living and working in Russia. On not one single occasion (and this includes travelling the entire length of the country from Moscow to Vladivostok both by train, many times, and once by car) was I ever stopped by the police / law enforcement or asked to show my papers or passport, except when entering or exiting the country at an airport or international border.
Nor was this because I’m obviously a ‘foreigner’ in Russia and was treated differently for that reason - I’m not sure anyone could tell I’m not Russian just by looking at me, and I can speak good enough Russian not to need to communicate in English when I’m travelling there.
Not sure I can say the same about the last 3 years I was continuously in the US.... ;)
I have read that folks from the Caucasus get the third degree, and it's clear they (whether Georgian, Ossetian or Chechen) have a distinct look about them, ranging from the unibrow and the 5 o'clock shadow at noon which are visible and the hairy backs, which (generally) isn't.
My impression with religiously-motivated Muslim attacks is that they kill every single person who remotely looks like an infidel. They carjacked some guy and let him walk away. Never mind religious reasons - for operational ones, they had every reason to kill him and stuff his body in the trunk (or bury it somewhere where it wasn't likely to be found any time soon). But they let him live.
The other issue is that a jihadi looking to slaughter infidels would have amassed a much higher body count simply going door-to-door and killing everyone in his path. In Bombay, that's exactly what they did, with 11 guys amassing a body count of 160+ victims.
Quite possibly, and quite possibly with reason, in some instances. But not really connected with the original post - we’re getting a bit off-topic here now :)
>>>Quite possibly, in Russia. But this was a request made to our FBI, whom they can’t in any way ‘make comply’ - and have no reason to forward such a request to, unless there is a genuine security concern (to themselves, possibly, as much as to us) behind it.<<<
FBI is constantly in contact with numerous Russian law-enforcement agencies. They send hundreds of requests to each other.
BTW, under Russian legislation uploading jihadi videos to your social network account might be a federal crime. He also could use social networking for hate preaching or some kind of terror conspiracy which could be tracked as soon as servers are under Russian jurisdiction. They could identify user’s IP as located it United States and that alone was worthy to request FBI to interrogate a perp.
Absolutely agree. My only point was something was identified to trigger this request two years ago. Which obviously (and tragically) wasn’t followed up on or considered serious enough to warrant further investigation.
The carjack victim’s name is Tarek Ahmed. Sounds muslim to me. Sometimes they don’t kill muslims like the Afghans who murdered 10 Christian international humanitarian aid workers / volunteers, but spared their muslim Afghani driver.
Tarek Ahmed, 45, is the "owner" of the gas station where the car jackers released their victim (link):
Tarek Ahmed, 45, told Fox News that the victim, whose Mercedes-Benz was reportedly stolen by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a young Caucasian man between 20 and 25 years old. Ahmed claimed that he was working at gas station on Memorial Drive, when the man ran into his store screaming, “Call the police! Call the police! These people are trying to kill me!”"I thought he was drunk. I didn't believe him when he came in, it just sounded very crazy," Ahmed said. Despite his skepticism, Ahmed let the man, who has not been identified, inside to use his phone.
"He came very fast and was nervous and was afraid of the guy. He said they pushed him out of car," he said. "He went inside and closed the door. He was shaking and very nervous. I only believe him when the cops came."
“..going door-to-door and killing everyone ..”
May have been planned different if Bombay had a 2nd amendment though. That method would have brought a quicker end I would think here in the US.
You may be right. The Bombay crew were armed with grenades and fully automatic rifles, though. In any case, I hope we never need to find out.
Overheard on the interwebs:
When one Fox host described the culprits as “punks,” former-senator and current current Fox commentator Scott Brown said, “Not punks—cowards. Cowards.” What is this need to describe terrorists as cowards? Is it supposed to make them feel inadequate? Call them savages, called them maniacal killers; no need to call them cowards. At the same time, the newscasters talk about how Boston residents were “terrorized” and “living in fear for the past few days.” Were they really? I think it’s unseemly to be terrorized by any problem a sidearm should be able to handle. If Bostonians were terrorized, I would apply the term cowards to them.
Of course, for fatuousness, you can always rely on Obama. As he said in his speech yesterday, “Over successive generations, [Boston has] welcomed again and again new arrivals to our shores; immigrants who constantly reinvigorated this city and this commonwealth and our nation.”
[Yes, by all means let’s bring over more wonderful immigrants from places like Chechnya. Who could possibly object?]
And then, “If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorise us, to shake us from those values that Deval described, the values that make us who we are as Americans, well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it. Not here in Boston.”
[Right—Boston, the city that entirely shut itself down for nearly 24 hours to search for two bombers, wasn’t intimidated. And didn’t the CNN correspondents tell us its citizens were terrorized?]
And finally, “But more than that, our fidelity to our way of life, for a free and open society, will only grow stronger, for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but one of power and love and self-discipline.”
[Meanwhile, stay tuned for a bunch of restrictions on your Constitutional rights I plan to make in reaction to the bombing—no use letting a crisis go to waste.]
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