Russia's North Caucasus Rebels Deny Link to Boston Bombings

[TruthOut10]

Rebels in Russia’s North Caucasus region denied any link to the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon in a statement posted on the vdagestan.com website.

“The Caucasian Mujahedeen are not fighting with the United States of America,” according to the statement, which was attributed to unidentified Mujahedeen commanders in Dagestan. “We are at war with Russia, which is responsible not only for the occupation of the Caucasus, but also for heinous crimes against Muslims.”

An FBI-led probe is looking into a six-month trip suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, an immigrant of Chechen descent, took around two years ago to Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan, both regions of Russia that have been embroiled in Islamist separatist movements.

Tamerlan, 26, was killed during a gunfight with the police after two explosions on April 15 near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that left three dead and more than 170 people wounded. His 19-year-old brother, Dzhokar, is being held in a Boston hospital where he is in serious condition after being taken into custody April 19.

Russia?s North Caucasus Rebels Deny Link to Boston Bombings - Bloomberg

 

[waltky]

Tamerlan called the shots...

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Tamerlan was the mastermind in Boston bombing
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings, told investigators that it was his brother, Tamerlan, and not internationalist terror cell members, who plotted the April 15 marathon attacks.

An unnamed government official said the interviews with Mr. Tsarnaev were preliminary, given his medical condition, CNN reported. The suspect is recovering in the hospital from a neck wound that some believe was self-inflicted, but has been communicating with investigators in writing.

But law enforcement also said that both brothers fit profiles for jihadists who are self-radicalized, rather than raised and trained for terror by established overseas groups, CNN reported. Mr. Tsarnaev told investigators that Tamerlan believed Islam was under attack and that it was his duty to fight aback, CNN reported.

Investigators are following up with those statements, CNN reported.

Read more: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Tamerlan was the mastermind in Boston bombing - Washington Times

See also:

Boston bombing suspects built explosives with help of online Al Qaeda magazine, official says
April 23, 2013 - Faith eyed as motive in marathon attack, as suspect communicates by writing

The brothers suspected of planting deadly bombs at the Boston Marathon may have gotten their ideas -- and even instructions on how to make explosives from household items -- from an English-language online magazine that Al Qaeda uses to radicalize and recruit Westerners. A U.S. official told Fox News that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, built the bombs with instructions from Inspire magazine -- an English-language online magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The publication is believed to have been started by Samir Khan, a U.S. citizen who moved in 2009 from his family's home in North Carolina to Yemen, where he was later killed in a U.S. drone strike along with Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. The magazine includes articles penned by Khan and others, like "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." The magazine is released through online jihadist forums -- some of which are open, while others are password protected, according to terrorism researchers. But one issue of Inspire encourages readers to seek out its information from non-jihadist websites, like blogs and even news outlets -- which publish the magazine's content -- so as not to attract the attention of law enforcement monitoring the forums, a counter-terrorism source told FoxNews.com.

In a 2010 edition of the magazine obtained by FoxNews.com, Al Qaeda warns Western readers to access information from non-Islamic websites. "Whenever possible, try to get the information you need from websites that are non-Islamic or are not related to jihad. For example, you may visit sites that report on the mujahidin and cover their material such as SITE intelligence group or Memri," reads an article titled, "Tips for Our Brothers in the United States of America."

Mark Bederow, a New York-based criminal defense attorney, said simply accessing pro-Al Qaeda websites or publications is not enough for arrest. But he conceded that monitoring a website's traffic could be a valuable tool for law enforcement agents seeking to protect the public from terror plots. "The more we are learning about the Tsarnaev brothers, the more it seems the warning signs were there to consider them potentially very dangerous individuals," Bederow told FoxNews.com. "Because of the First Amendment, we punish actions, not thoughts, however reprehensible they may be," he said. "Accessing a distasteful website and publicly sharing anti-American views, short of encouraging imminent illegal action, is not enough for arrest in this country."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/2...sources-say-with-faith-seen-as/#ixzz2RMsTM0ht

Related:

FBI to explain actions regarding older bombing suspect
4/22/13 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday will brief the Senate Intelligence Committee on what it learned from an interview it conducted in 2011 with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and why it did not pursue him further at the time.

The briefing on Tuesday afternoon will be classified and the witnesses are not yet known, according to a source close to the proceedings.

Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a firefight early Friday morning after the police tracked down him and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. They are the only suspects in last week’s Boston Marathon bombing.

A handful of lawmakers in the House, including Speaker John Boehne (R-Ohio) have vowed to conduct briefings and hold hearings into how the brothers operated under the radar of the FBI after the Russian government notified federal investigators that the older brother was a potential threat.

The tip from Russian authorities came after the suspect spent six months in two Russian provinces in 2010 and 2011 before returning to the U.S.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...tions-regarding-bombing-suspect#ixzz2RMriMTeq

 

[BallsBrunswick]

That's very interesting to me. It seemed very odd to me that the terrorists turned out to be Chechen as there's really been no beef between the United States and them. Plus they're so busy being oppressed and fuck with by the Russians that to attempt to pick a fight with United States just seemed odd. I'm going to be very curious to hear more details about the motivations and potential terrorist cell because right now it seems like a pack of kooks who's not connected to any of the major players in international terrorism.

 

[Politico]

Until there is any evidence proving oherwise there is no reason not to believe them.

 

[CaféAuLait]

Ananova - Bin Laden denies terror attacks and points finger at Jews

CNN.com - Bin Laden says he wasn't behind attacks - September 17, 2001

Attacks have been denied before, several in fact not just 9-11 but others. So who knows, I hope it was just these two idiots and not part of a plan.

 

[Sallow]

Ananova - Bin Laden denies terror attacks and points finger at Jews

CNN.com - Bin Laden says he wasn't behind attacks - September 17, 2001

Attacks have been denied before, several in fact not just 9-11 but others. So who knows, I hope it was just these two idiots and not part of a plan.

Bin Laden may have denied the attacks a few time, but internally they were taking credit for it. And there was plenty of chatter in the spook community prior to the attacks. We know this because we were able to conduct investigations, look for defects in policy and make repairs.

That's not possible with these sorts of "lone wolf" attacks because they are independent of any such conspiracy. There's no communications to capture. So it also makes it very difficult to stop these attacks. It's not entirely impossible however. And it would involve incorporating methods that civil libertarians would take objection too, like putting tags in gunpowder for flagging people buying certain combinations of materials.