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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 06:50 PM Apr 2013

Officials: No sign ‘Misha’ tied to Boston bombing

Source: AP/Salon

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say investigators have found no evidence that a conservative Muslim friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev had any connection to the Boston Marathon bombing.

Tsarnaev is one of two suspects in the bombing. He died in a shootout with police.

Family members have said he grew up religiously apathetic but hardened his Islamic views in 2008 or 2009 under the influence of a Muslim convert, known to the family as Misha.

Two U.S. officials close to the investigation say the FBI has identified an individual believed to be Misha. The officials would not say whether the FBI has spoken to him but say they’ve found no ties to the attack or terrorism in general.

-snip-


Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/27/officials_no_sign_misha_tied_to_boston_bombing/



The last sentence of the article is the obligatory, "the sources insisted on anonymity"
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DinahMoeHum

(21,737 posts)
1. Something about "Misha" being an Armenian convert to Islam (???). . .
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 08:45 PM
Apr 2013

. . .doesn't pass the smell test(s).

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/461427/20130425/misha-boston-armenian-tsarnaev-tamerlan.htm

(snip)
A chubby Armenian exorcist converted to Islam allegedly played a role in the radicalisation of suspect Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, according to some of his relatives.

However in the large and close-knit Boston Armenian community no one has ever heard of the red-bearded Misha, the man who "brainwashed" Tamerlan.

"I've never heard of him, nor has anyone that I know," Hilda Avedissian, executive director at the Armenian Cultural & Educational Centre in Watertown, Boston told IBTimes UK.

(snip)
The Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church in Cambridge, one of the 17 Armenian churches serving the greater Boston area, told IBTimes UK they "have no information whatsoever," about Misha.

"We have a good knowledge of [Armenian] people living here. We don't know all of them but at least 70 percent of them yes; and no one knows who he is," Avedissian added.

(snip)
A trail leads to Russia. Misha isn't a traditional Armenian name and Muslims living in Armenia are reportedly mainly immigrants from the same southern Russia's regions the Tsarnaev family comes from.

"There are some [Muslims] in Armenia but they are immigrants from Russia who got the citizenship. They aren't from Armenian descent," she said.

(snip)

DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
2. Why not? If a Jewish wing nut...
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 09:33 PM
Apr 2013

can convert to a branch of fundamentalist Christianity advocating for the implementation of a Christian type sharia law here in the U.S., it should be amply possible for an Armenian to convert to a religion not popular with his own people.

The Jewish wing nut was Howard Phillips:

Howard Jay Phillips (February 3, 1941 – April 20, 2013) was a three-time United States presidential candidate who served as the chairman of The Conservative Caucus, a conservative public policy advocacy group which he founded in 1974.

Jewish by birth and a native of Boston, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1941,[2] Phillips converted to evangelical Christianity in adulthood[3] and has been associated with Christian Reconstructionism.

-snip-

During the Nixon Administration, Phillips headed two federal agencies, ending his Executive Branch career as director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in the Executive Office of the President for five months in 1973, a position from which he resigned when U.S. President Richard M. Nixon reneged on his commitment to veto further funding for Great Society programs begun in the administration of Nixon's predecessor, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson
.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Phillips_(politician)

Christian Reconstructionism

...prominent advocates of Christian Reconstructionism have written that according to their understanding, God's law approves of the death penalty not only for murder, but also for propagators of all forms of idolatry,[4][5][6] active homosexuals,[7] adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, and blasphemers,[8] and perhaps even recalcitrant youths[9].


... Christian Reconstructionism's founder, Rousas John Rushdoony, wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law (the founding document of reconstructionsim), that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society and advocates the reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Reconstructionism

brett_jv

(1,245 posts)
6. Of course nobody knows him ...
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 10:46 PM
Apr 2013

Misha is an FBI mole, and this whole episode was either a false flag or a sting operation gone wrong!!1!1!!!!

DinahMoeHum

(21,737 posts)
4. I dunno, IMO, the credibility of the mother and father
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 10:03 PM
Apr 2013

is very questionable, and the public's eyebrows are going up every time they open their mouths.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just very unlikely.

It would be like "finding a unicorn in a field", according to one quoted in the article:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/461427/20130425/misha-boston-armenian-tsarnaev-tamerlan.htm



DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
5. Even the Uncle has discussed...
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 10:25 PM
Apr 2013

the existence of Misha, who he met. and Misha's influence on the oldest son. As for the mother and father, they have apparently gone into hiding:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022758633

DinahMoeHum

(21,737 posts)
7. The thought has just come to me. It MAY be that. . .
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 11:06 PM
Apr 2013

"Misha" is actually Azerbaijani, NOT Armenian.

The two countries are next to each other, they are south of Chechnya and Dagestan, and their peoples are similar in appearance; but while Armenia is predominantly Christian, Azerbaijan is predominantly Muslim.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&gs_rn=11&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=chechnya&cp=5&gs_id=m&xhr=t&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&biw=1024&bih=677&q=dagestan&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x404e6224341fbc27:0xd1d546f260bc6795,Dagestan,+Russia&gl=us&sa=X&ei=tY58UaybH9bb4AO-9YD4Bg&sqi=2&ved=0CJIBELYD


Still another possibility: this "Misha" may be from the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Location_Nagorno-Karabakh2.png


Again: I'm not saying that an Armenian convert to Islam is impossible; just unlikely.

vinny9698

(1,016 posts)
8. Radicalization by Right Wing Radio: Alex Jones, Infowars
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 12:33 PM
Apr 2013

This is who the mother was listening to about the 9/11 conspiracy. The US government did it to frame Muslims. Great work Alex, both right wing militias and radical Muslims are his listeners. All to sell gold and survival gear for a quick buck.

brett_jv

(1,245 posts)
9. To be fair, there WAS one 9/11 conspiracy on teh part of the US
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 01:08 PM
Apr 2013

That was the BushCo conspiracy to hide as much from the public as possible regarding their abject FAILURE to do a single friggin' thing to try to stop it from happening, despite a PLETHORA of sign and warnings ... for as long as possible.

There would've never even BEEN any serious investigation into the events of that day if they'd not been SHAMED by the 'survivors' into doing so. Then they put their bagmen in charge of the investigation, limited the avenues that could be investigated, and redacted huge parts of the report.

There was an undeniable conspiracy for them to cover their asses afterwards.

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