Tamerlan Tsarnaev Jihad Call
Tamerlan Tsarnaev Jihad Call, The Russian warning to the United States
government in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers accused
in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, was based on two intercepted
telephone calls discussing jihad, both involving his mother, a law
enforcement official said on Saturday.
The Russian authorities informed the F.B.I. in March 2011 that Mr.
Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who had lived in the United States for about
a decade, had changed drastically, had adopted extremist views and
planned to travel to Russia to meet with underground groups. The F.B.I.
sent agents to interview Mr. Tsarnaev and his parents and found no
evidence of any crime, but the Russians re-sent the same information to
the C.I.A. in September 2011.
Despite repeated requests for additional information about what was behind the warning, Russian officials never explained the basis for their concern until after the Boston bombing, which killed three people and wounded more than 260. Only in recent days did the Russian authorities say that the intercepted phone calls had prompted their messages to the United States government, said the official, who would speak about the continuing investigation only on condition of anonymity.
The intercepted calls were first reported by The Associated Press on
Saturday. Both calls involved Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of Tamerlan
and his younger brother, Dzhokhar. The authorities believe that the
brothers set off two homemade bombs at the marathon’s finish line.
Tamerlan, 26, died after being shot by the police and run over with a
vehicle driven by his fleeing brother; Dzhokhar, 19, was shot but is
recovering in a prison hospital.
One call was between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother; the other was
between Ms. Tsarnaeva and another person in Russia who is under F.B.I.
investigation in an unrelated matter. The calls mentioned jihad — a
central concept in Islam that sometimes can mean holy war — but no
specific attack plans, the official said.
Read More: nytimes