The eldest Boston bombing suspect had not one but two rage-filled rants in a New England mosque, it was revealed today.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a police shootout on Thursday night, lashed out at religious leaders at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center on two occasions, the mosque said in a statement Monday, both of which occurred only after he returned from his six-month trip to Russia.
The first outburst came last November when preachers told mosque congregants that it was appropriate for Muslims to celebrate U.S. holidays such as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, causing Tamerlan to stand up and argue.
The second was this past January. The mosque said that Tamerlan, who was not a member but visited for Friday evening services often, lashed out at a preacher for lecturing on Martin Luther King Jr’s accomplishments.
According to a release sent out Monday, Tamerlan screamed at the preacher and called him a ‘hypocrite’ and a ‘non-believer’ who was ‘contaminating people’s minds.’
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The bombing suspects reportedly prayer and visited the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center infrequently
A banner reading "United We Stand For Peace on Earth" stands outside the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge. A mosque official confirmed that suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, worshipped there
Anwar Kazmi, a member of the mosque's board of trustees said that the Tsarnaev brothers were infrequent visitors to the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center
VIDEO Tamerlan Tsarnaev was thrown out of mosque for angry rant
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was thrown out of Boston mosque for angry rant
Congregants shouted back at him, telling him to leave, and he did.
Later, volunteer leaders of the mosque met with him and told him that he would not be welcome at service if he interrupted again. The group said he continued attending sometimes and did not cause any more problems.
Tamerlan’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, who is in critical condition at Beth Israel Deaconess, was arraigned Monday. Officials told the Associated Press that the brothers were motivated by religion but appear not to be tied to any Islamic terrorist groups.
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Anwar Kazmi, a member of the mosque's board of trustees, told a USA Today reporter that 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died early Friday morning after a shootout with police, was an infrequent attendee for about a year-and-a-half, while 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was captured hiding in a boat in Watertown on Friday night, attended only once.
Responding to the revelation that both brothers had attended their mosque, the Islamic Society issued a statement to say that while the suspects were known to other worshipers, they could not have predicted their horrific bombing of the Boston marathon which claimed three lives and injured over 180 people.
Imam Suhaib Webb, of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the city's largest mosque, said in an interview that he had recently heard of the incident. 'That's a sign right there that his views aren't mainstream,' Webb said.
They pledged to aid federal and city law enforcement to leave 'no stone uncovered in finding any suspects connected to the bombs.'
Ruslan Tsarni, uncle of Boston Marathon bombing suspect brothers, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev believes 'they were just puppets and executors of something of bigger scale'
The brothers are believed to have placed one of the bombs near to a Boston store where their mother had been sacked for stealing clothes
Yesterday the brothers¿ mother, Zubeidat, said the FBI once told her that Tamerlan was ¿really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him'
Meanwhile, the Tsarnaev bother's uncle Ruslan Tsarni, who described the pair as 'losers' after they were named as suspects, raised the worrying possibility that they were radicalized by a domestic source and not a foreign one.
The lawyer said that Tamerlan especially had fallen under the thrall of an as-yet unidentified religious leader while living in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ruslan Tsarni says he grew concerned about Tamerlan Tsarnaev when he told him in a 2009 phone conversation that he had chosen 'God's business' over work or school.
Tsarni said he then contacted a family friend who told him Tsarnaev had been influenced by a recent convert to Islam.
'There certainly were mentors,’’ Tsarni said to the Today show. 'I was shocked when I heard his words, his phrases, when every other word he starts sticking in words of God. I question what he’s doing for work, (and) he claimed he would just put everything in the will of God.
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'It was a big concern to me. He called me 'confused' when I started explaining to him, make yourself useful to yourself and to your family and maybe you’ll have extra to share with everybody else.'
'I strongly believe they were just puppets and executors of something of bigger scale,' Tsarni told Savannah Guthrie.
The Rhode Island resident told his nephew that 'he was giving up on everything, struggling with your own shadow' by wholeheartedly turning to Islan.
'He had been sort of brainwashing him,' Tsarni told the Sunday Times of London.
The brothers' parents told NBC News they believe their sons were framed and Tsarni said a family acquaintance told him there was an outside influence on Tamerlan.
'He said there is someone who brainwashed him, some new convert to Islam,’’ Tsarni said. “I would like to stress (the acquaintance was) of Armenian descent.’
The uncle also speculated that Tamerlan’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, was manipulated into the bombing plot.
'Dzhokhar is just a kid who wanted to have older brother to look up at. Except for being a murderer, he’s been a loving brother.'
'That so-called radicalization was seeded right here, not in the Caucasus, not in Russia, not in Chechnya, which he has nothing to do with,' Tsarni said.
The extremist views which Tamerlan developed over the course of the past three years caught the attention of Russian security officals who asked the FBI to question him in 2011 - before he traveled to Chechnya and Dagestan last year.
The FBI are said to have discovered nothing incriminating during their conversations with Tamerlan.
However, friends said that Tamerlan became increasingly vocal in his views, especially concerning Christians.
'He said . . . the Koran spoke more of the truth then the Bible. He said the Bible was used as an excuse to invade other countries,' said Albrecht Ammon, 18, a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, which the bombers also attended according to the New York Post.
And it has been revealed today that Tamerlan had direct contact with Chechen terrorists – and was ‘monitored’ by investigators for five years.
The FBI put Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, under surveillance after receiving an explicit warning from the Russian intelligence services.
Rebel: One theory is that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was inspired by Doku Umarov, a Chechen terrorist known as Russia's Bin Laden
Umarov has recently widened his fight for Chechen independence to a wider Jihadist agenda
VIDEO Could the Boston bombers have been inspired by Umarov?
'Russia's Bin Laden'. Could he have inspired Boston bomb suspects
But despite apparently telling his mother that Tamerlan was an ‘extremist’ leader, the FBI eventually discounted the possibility that he was a threat.
Yesterday the brothers’ mother, Zubeidat, said the FBI once told her that Tamerlan was ‘really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him’. She added: ‘He was controlled by the FBI for five years. They knew what my son was doing. They were following every step of his.’
And his father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said investigators warned his son: ‘We know what sites you are on, we know where you are calling, we know everything about you. Everything. We are checking and watching.’
Russia's Bin Laden Doku Umarov was believed to be behind the Moscow Metro bombing in 2010 which killed at least 40
Despite all this, the FBI found no substantive evidence that he was engaged in terror-related activities though they continued to ‘monitor his internet use and contacts’.
According to an intelligence source, Russia remained convinced that Tamerlan, an ethnic Chechen, was in ‘direct contact’ with Islamist militants, most likely based in the strife-torn southern Russian region of Dagestan, where he lived for two years with his family prior to moving to the US.
During a six-month visit to Russia last year – a trip US investigators are investigating – it is understood Tamerlan visited Dagestan, which is now regarded as more unstable than Chechnya.
One theory is that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, who was in thrall to his older brother, may have been ‘inspired’ by a rebel leader known as Russia’s Bin Laden.
A light beam from a helicopter, top right, aims in the direction of Watertown, where officials searched for Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev on Friday
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is apprehended on Friday evening after almost 24-hours on the run following a week of terror in Boston
Doku Umarov, like the Tsarnaev brothers, is an ethnic Chechen from the war-torn Caucasus region that lies between Europe and Central Asia.
He has been accused of masterminding some of the worst terrorist atrocities in Russia, including suicide bombings carried out by two women on Moscow’s Metro system in 2010 which killed at least 40.
Significantly, while Umarov was originally fighting only for Chechen independence he has more recently embraced a wider jihadist agenda.
It raises the terrifying prospect of further atrocities being carried out across the globe by disaffected individuals inspired by the jihadist rhetoric of the former Chechen leaders.
Intriguingly, President Putin offered to ‘provide assistance’ to the investigation in Boston before it was known that there was a Chechen link to the bombing.
‘Fighting terrorism is more important than political posturing,’ said a Russian source yesterday.
‘If we work together properly and deeply, we have much more chance of defeating those who want to maim and kill.’