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4/20/13, “Was Boston bomber inspired by Russia’s Bin Laden? FBI tracked older brother ‘for FIVE YEARS’ after being told by Moscow of links to Chechen terrorists,” UK Daily Mail, Gallagher and Stewart
“One of the brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombings had direct contact with Chechen terrorists – and was ‘monitored’ by investigators for five years.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that the FBI put Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, under surveillance after receiving an explicit warning from the Russian intelligence services.
But despite apparently telling his mother that Tamerlan was an ‘extremist’ leader, the FBI eventually discounted the possibility that he was a threat….
More details also emerged of the shoot-out after the brothers were cornered in a stolen Mercedes 4×4.
Police said Tamerlan burst out of the car shooting at officers.
‘There were six police officers in this very tight area engaged in a
gunfight,’ said police chief Edward Deveau. ‘During the exchange, all of
a sudden, something got thrown at my police officers and there was a
major explosion,’ he said.
In all, there were three explosions and 200 rounds were fired during the five-to-ten minute exchange.
It ended when Tamerlan ran out of ammunition, He was on the ground being handcuffed when he was run over by his younger brother as he escaped in the car.
While Dzhokhar’s capture ended a week
of tension and drama in Boston, triggering scenes of jubilation and
self-congratulation among law enforcement officers, questions will now be asked about how the brothers managed to slip the net.
US congressmen have expressed concern
that the tip-off about Tamerlan to the FBI from Moscow may not have been
properly followed through.
Yesterday the brothers’ mother, Zubeidat, said the FBI once told her that Tamerlan was ‘really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him’. She added: ‘He was controlled by the FBI for five years. They knew what my son was doing. They were following every step of his.’...
Despite all this, the FBI found no substantive evidence that he was engaged in terror-related activities though they continued to ‘monitor his internet use and contacts’.
According to an intelligence source, Russia
remained convinced that Tamerlan, an ethnic Chechen, was in ‘direct
contact’ with Islamist militants, most likely based in the strife-torn southern Russian region of Dagestan, where he lived for two years with his family prior to moving to the US.
During a six-month visit to Russia last year – a trip US investigators are investigating – it is understood Tamerlan visited Dagestan, which is now regarded as more unstable than Chechnya....
It became clear yesterday that it was a series of setbacks in Tamerlan’s personal life that rendered him increasingly bitter. Individually, none seems particularly significant, but cumulatively they were devastating and caused him to turn against his adopted homeland.
Tamerlan was a promising boxer, possibly destined for the US Olympic team, but his dream was shattered by a back injury. At the same time he could only manage to secure menial work, though he was considered bright at school.
He was devastated when his best friend was killed in 2011 in an unsolved murder and then came an incident which investigators believe is particularly significant.
He was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend in 2009 – which scuppered his chance of obtaining American citizenship.
An intelligence source said: ‘There is a view that this more than anything set him against the USA.’
After his trip to Russia and
Dagestan, Tamerlan returned to the US to discover that his mother had
been sacked from Lord & Taylor department store in Natick, Massachusetts, for allegedly stealing clothes.
This further enraged him and he became more outspoken in his criticism of America.
The brothers are believed to have placed one of their bombs near the company’s Boston store, possibly in revenge."…
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