NBC News reporting Tamerlan Tsarnaev [the one in the black hat/Suspect One] had a bomb strapped to his chest when he was killed (1). Boston Globe reports an explosive trigger was found on his body in the morgue (2).
NBC News reporting Tamerlan Tsarnaev [the one in the black hat/Suspect One] had a bomb strapped to his chest when he was killed (1). Boston Globe reports an explosive trigger was found on his body in the morgue (2).
Bombing motive: Far from obviousWhy would Chechen refugees, who’ve been locked for nearly two decades in a bitter, violent conflict against the Russian government, harbor such anger against the United States that they’d want to carry out a terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon?
The answer is far from obvious, since the U.S. and Russia are often at odds on a wide variety of issues and the American officials regularly denounce the Russian Federation for engaging in human rights abuses, including in Chechnya.
It’s not clear whether the Boston suspects were part of any group.
[...]
“Over the last several years, we’ve seen Chechens fighting in Afghanistan, Chechens fighting in Iraq, Chechens fighting in Syria,” said Lorenzo Vidino of the Switzerland-based Center for Security Studies. “Starting in the 1990s, some Chechens began to embrace a militant interpretation of Islam and have fallen into the umbrella of a sort of global jihad, despite the fact that the conflict in their region was still going on.
[...]
“Once you embrace that ideology, if you buy into the global jihad mindset, one battlefield equals the other,” added Vidino, who got his doctorate at Tufts’ Fletcher School, outside Boston. “An attack on Boston is good as an attack on Pakistan which is as good as an attack on Moscow…..We had a Chechen who lived in Belgium live there for a couple of years, then go to Denmark and try to carry out an attack.”
The total number of Chechens who have linked up with global jihad groups like Al Qaeda is probably in the low hundreds and represent a small fraction of Chechen fighters or separatists, Vidino added. “A lot of leaders of the Chechen resistance live in the U.S. It would be wrong for people to incorrectly lump them all up together,” he said, noting that many of the refugees don’t have a particularly religious worldview.
[...]
Some analysts also noted that the motivation of the men involved in the Boston attacks might have little to do with their roots.
“Knowing where Boston bombers were from is not the same as knowing why they did it,” Stephen Walt, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government said on Twitter early Friday.
“The name Chechen could be footnote there,” said Vidino, especially if the relatively young men never engaged in fighting in that region.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/chechnya-boston-marathon-bombing-90329.html
Boston Bombing Suspect Posted Video on Al Qaeda Prophecy on YouTubeTamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26 year-old brother of the second Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, seems to have had a YouTube page where he posted religious videos, including a video of Feiz Mohammad, a fundamentalist Australian Muslim preacher who rails against the evils of Harry Potter. Among those videos is a playlist including one dedicated to the prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan which is embraced by Islamic extremists—particularly Al Qaeda. The videos posted on this YouTube page may shed light on the motivations for the attack on the Boston Marathon. The prophecy states that an invincible army will come from the region of "Khurasan," a large portion of territory in central Asia.
"This is a major hadith (reported saying of the prophet Muhammad) that jihadis use, it is essentially an end-time prophecy," says Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy "This is definitely important in Al Qaeda's ideology." In The Black Banners, former FBI agent Ali Soufan's book about his pursuit of Al Qaeda that is named after this prophecy, Soufan describes the prophecy this way:
[quote]Khurasan is a term for a historical region spanning northeastern and eastern Iran and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and northwestern Pakistan. Because of the hadith, jihadists believe that this is the region from which they will inflict a major defeat against their enemies—in the Islamic version of Armageddon.
The videos were posted on a playlist called "Islam" four months ago under the username "muazseyfullah." According to Zelin, "Mu'az is usually a name," and "Sayf Allah means sword of God." Here is the video:
According to Soufan's book, "It’s not a coincidence that bin Laden made al-Qaeda’s flag black; he also regularly cited the hadith and referenced Khurasan when recruiting, motivating, and fund-raising." Soufan adds that Al Qaeda operatives he interrogated were often convinced that by joining the extremist group they were fulfilling the prophecy. Soufan states that the origin of the "black banners" hadith—and whether the prophet Muhammad ever said it—is questionable.[/quote]
I know it's not been officially confirmed (and I'm pretty sure the fleeing suspect isn't going to be taken alive), but it's what it's shaping up to look like. Going to be very interested in the national reaction if it is Islamic.
I'm thinking the older brother may have been the leader, and his brother was just helping him out. I actually feel sympathy for the younger brother, since I could imagine his desperation and loneliness at this point.
Originally posted by Lestov16
I know it's not been officially confirmed (and I'm pretty sure the fleeing suspect isn't going to be taken alive), but it's what it's shaping up to look like. Going to be very interested in the national reaction if it is Islamic.
oh, I hope he is taken alive... so many questions about his motivations are unclear. Is this global Chechen action? Is it Jihad? Is it totally unrelated?
Originally posted by Lestov16
I'm thinking the older brother may have been the leader, and his brother was just helping him out. I actually feel sympathy for the younger brother, since I could imagine his desperation and loneliness at this point.
ya, again, that is a really nice narrative, we just don't know yet... Could easily tell the story the other way, with the info that has been released on the suspects.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
ON, do you think the attempted holdup of the 7-11 was another attempt at a bombing (get police and media to surround you, maybe blow them up), or do you think they were just dumb/greedy and wanted to rob a 7-11?
I think releasing the images shocked them into doing something sloppy.
I had initially thought it would have been for cash, but now that you mention it, the large number of explosive devices they had and the bombs strapped to the brother's chest really don't support that at all.
Though, ya, maybe they wanted some last standoff to kill a lot of cops. Also, when they carjacked the one person, they let them go unharmed, so that is interesting. But no, I hadn't thought of it that way, but now that I do it seems really obvious this wasn't a random robbery, they seemed to have come prepared to engage in a major fight.
so, they've lost suspect 2
my worry now would be that, given he knows his back is against the wall, he doesn't just do something spectacular. I mean, there aren't going to be any major gatherings, but even just walking into an apartment building with a bunch of sticks of dynamite, or pulling the fire alarm or whatever. Like, in terms of his psychology, he is probably close to "what do I have to lose?"
Originally posted by Robtard
It's possible to be crazy, white and be Islamic. It would also be possible that religion had nothing to do with motives.
You are right. Sorry. It was early in the morning, I just saw the link ON posted about the Al-Qaeda conspiracy video, and I started jumping to conclusions.
Originally posted by Robtard
You dumb racist bastard.
Touchy there. Calm yourself.
look, the most likely story at this point is that these individuals, while living in America, became radicalized into Jihad in some way, and committed these actions.
This may change, as it is based on incomplete knowledge on an up-to-the-minute story, but yes, this seems to be some type of global Jihad, the question being whether these individuals were inspired by Al Qaeda or actually formally a part of it. This is all subject to change, of course.