Agents Pore Over Suspect’s Trip to Russia

[alp227]

Source: New York Times

F.B.I. agents are working closely with Russian security officials to reconstruct Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s activities and connections in Dagestan during his six-month visit last year, tracking meetings he may have had with specific militants, his visits to a radical mosque and any indoctrination or training he may have received, law enforcement officials said Sunday.

At the same time, the bureau is also still looking for “persons of interest” in the United States who may have played a role in the radicalization of Mr. Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, before the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday. But Mr. Rogers said “the big unknown” remains what happened in Russia.

Investigators believe it is likely the Tsarnaev brothers were self-radicalized and got their bomb-making instructions strictly from the Internet. But they are still exploring the possibility that other people in Russia or the United States were critical influences, if not accomplices, and officials say it may be weeks before the full picture of their plot is clear.

Officials said they were still examining the conduct of the Tsarnaev brothers’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, and Tamerlan’s wife, Katherine Russell, 24, who converted to Islam when she married him in 2010.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/us/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-contacts-on-russian-trip-draw-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=all

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Watch the full "This Week" panel segment on current events in the following video, with the Boston bombing subject starting 13:18:

Also on the panel: Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Jeffrey Goldberg (correspondent, The Atlantic magazine), Martha Raddatz (ABC News foreign correspondent). link to transcript

[LeftInTX]

1. NYT article was very thorough

Sounds where Tamerlan spent his time was a hotbed for Muslim insurgency.

[PSPS]

2. "Pore?"

[Berlum]

4. Score

[dkf]

3. If he was going to join the insurgency in Dagestan it makes sense he would be trained in bomb making

On Saturday, the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that Mr. Tsarnaev had sought to join the Muslim insurgency in Dagestan and had been in contact with several rebels who were killed by Russian authorities in late spring of 2012 while he was staying in Makhachkala, the regional capital. Mr. Tsarnaev left Dagestan in July 2012, just two days after a shootout between militants and the police in which several militants were killed, including William Plotnikov, 23, a Russian-born Canadian. Investigators are trying to determine whether Mr. Tsarnaev and Mr. Plotnikov met, one official said on Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/us/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-contacts-on-russian-trip-draw-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=1

It all makes sense...Tamerlan wanted to stay there in Dagestan. He was ready to "die for Islam", then his father made him return to the US to get his citizenship, which was blocked by these investigations. That is a catch 22.

He was trained to fight the Russians, instead he decided to use what he was taught here. After all what kind of future is there for someone in the US if he is unable to look unrelated females in the eye or speak to them? How does a person who believes that strongly function? That wouldn't be acceptable in any job would it?

[Behind the Aegis]

5. Let's hope that agent gets some Clearsil!

Nothing like big pores!

[Franker65]

6. It will be difficult to find this information

He went there at a time when western intelligence was looking somewhere else. More than likely, it will be extremely difficult to reconstruct his activities in Dagestan.