Russian officials reject US allegations over Boston bombing suspect case

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(RIA Novosti – April 10, 2014) The allegations that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) declined to provide its American counterparts with comprehensive information about Tamerlan Tsarnayev, one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, is another manifestation of “anti-Russian hysteria”, Igor Korotchenko, the editor in chief of the Natsionalnaya Oborona (National Defence) magazine and a member of the public council […]

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ANNOUNCEMENT: New White Papers [re: Terrorism, Caucasus, Sochi Olympics, Boston Marathon bombing]

File Photo of Sochi Olympics Banner Near Highway in Warm Weather with Vehicle and Cyclicsts Nearby

Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 0 From: GORDON HAHN <gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net> Subject: New white papers ANNOUNCEMENT The Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation has posted the first of its white papers: Gordon M. Hahn, The Caucasus Emirate Comes to America: The Boston Marathon Bombing (Chicago, Ill.: GFC, October 2013 Gordon M. Hahn, The Caucasus Emirate Threat to the Sochi Winter Olympics (Chicago, Ill.: GFC, […]

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Research report on the Boston Marathon attack

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

From: “Hahn, Gordon M.” <ghahn@miis.edu> Subject: Research report on the Boston Marathon attack Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 ANNOUNCEMENT A special 25-page research report on the Boston Marathon attack: ‘The Caucasus Emirate Comes to America: The Boston Marathon Attack’ will soon be available.   For a copy please send an email request to gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What I have been warning […]

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FSB cooperates with FBI, CIA in Boston terror attack investigation – Bortnikov

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Interfax – KAZAN, June 6, 2013) The Federal Security Service is cooperating with the U.S. security services in the investigation of the Boston terror attack, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov said. “We are cooperating very actively with our FBI and CIA colleagues, responding to their requests and assisting in the arrangement of necessary procedures on the Russian territory,” he said on […]

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Russians to Get Access to FBI Data

FBI Headquarters Building file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – May 27, 2013) After the Boston bombings last month and ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi next February, U.S. authorities are expanding their work with the Interior Ministry by granting the Russians access to some FBI information. The development, which came during a visit by Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev to the […]

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Radicalization of Tsarnaev Brothers Likely Did Not Occur in Chechnya

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Volume 10, Issue 88 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 9, 2013) The role of the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston bombings is assessed differently on either side of the Atlantic. In the United States, few doubt they are terrorists and that the youngest son, Dzhokhar, who remains alive, […]

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Tsarnaevs’ Story Reveals Web of Ethnic Ties and Tensions in CIS

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – May 8, 2013) When the parents of “Misha,” the enigmatic Ukrainian-Armenian convert to Islam who allegedly helped radicalize Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, moved to the United States in the 1990s, they likely could not have imagined that their son would eventually be accused of coaching a Muslim terrorist. Yury Allakhverdov, a […]

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Why Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is Outside of Chechen Mentality

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Why did Tamerlan Tsarnaev­ – one of the alleged April 15 Boston Marathon bombers who died in a shoot-out with police on April 18 – ­not demand an end to the bloodshed in Dagestan, but was instead interested in what happened […]

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The Uphill Job of Mending Fences with the Kremlin

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Leaning Towards Barack Hussein Obama With Flags Behind Them

(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Speaking to reporters after last week’s (April 25) lengthy, televised, national question-and-answer (Q & A) session, President Vladimir Putin declared he “was optimistic this tragedy [the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing] will facilitate greater security cooperation, benefiting both America and Russia” […]

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re: Jackson Diehl on Extremists; from: John Evans

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

Subject: Jackson Diehl on Extremists From: John Evans <evansinusa@aol.com> Date: Thu, 2 May 2013 Jackson Diehl’s attempt to conflate the Chechen rebels with the Syrian rebels (“Extremists of Putin’s Own Making,” Washington Post op-ed, April 29, JRL #80) and then blame it all on the Russian President risks misleading readers into imagining that Russia, not Islamist extremism, is our current […]

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Boston Bomb Trail Leads Into Heart of Putin’s Own War on Terror

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Henry Meyer – May 1, 2013) Six blocks from the Caspian Sea, on Kotrova Street in central Makhachkala, sits a mosque being watched by undercover Russian agents charged with preventing acts of terror. As worshipers spill out into the streets, American investigators are watching now, too, as they try to reconstruct the events […]

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Boston bombings revealed lack of Russian ‘soft power’ in America

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ekaterina Zabrovskaya, RBTH – April 30, 2013) Russians in the United States believe the reaction of ordinary Americans to reports of a “Russian connection” in the Boston attack has shown how little people in the U.S. know about Russia and how weak Russia’s “soft power” is in the country. However, they do not […]

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Tsarnaev Case Highlights Communication Breakdown Between Daghestani Agencies

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 30, 2013) The Boston Marathon bombings have served to corroborate many observers’ previously unsubstantiated hunch that one reason for the Russian security services’ inability to contain the North Caucasus insurgency is that the various agencies responsible fail to share information among themselves. In this particular case, Daghestan’s Center for the Struggle Against […]

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Russian Security Services Offer Surprising Revelations About Boston Bombings

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 80 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Valery Dzutsev – April 29, 2013) On April 27, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an article on the dead Boston bomber suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, based on information it received from the Russian security services. It cited officers of the Dagestani Center for Combating Extremism who said […]

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Testimony on Russian-American Relations on the Question of Chechnya

File Photo of U.S. Capitol Dome

(Andranik Migranyan testimony – House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade – April 26, 2013 – http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/joint-subcommittee-hearing-islamist-extremism-chechnya-threat-us-homeland) Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Islamist Extremism in Chechnya: A Threat to the U.S. Homeland? Prepared Testimony of Andranik Migranyan  Director of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, New York U.S.-Russian relations on Chechnya have a […]

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The Fading Line Between Domestic and External Threats

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(RIA Novosti – Fyodor Lukyanov – April 26, 2013) Fyodor Lukyanov is Editor-in-Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs journal, an authoritative source of expertise on Russian foreign policy and global developments – eng.globalaffairs.ru The case of two ethnic Chechens suspected of planting bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon last Monday has perplexed many analysts. Since the […]

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Boston Bombers Reflect Specific Experiences of Some North Caucasians in Soviet and Post-Soviet Times, Moscow Analyst Says

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 29, 2013) The two brothers who carried out the horrific Boston bombing are not simply Muslims who were inspired by radical websites or Chechens who were continuing their struggle against Moscow by other means, as many in both Russia and the West have insisted, according to a Moscow analyst. Instead, Konstantin […]

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Jihadist Websites Played Role in Boston Bombing

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 25, 2013) As more evidence surfaces that the Boston bombing suspects were motivated by a radical version of Islam learned largely from jihadist websites, the monitoring of such websites may prove to be the starting point for closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on security issues. The surviving suspect of […]

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FBI and FSB probe Boston bombers links in Caucasus

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Doronina, special to RBTH  – April 25, 2013) The investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing has led U.S. authorities to the North Caucasus to look for links that the Tsarnaev brothers may have had with extremists there. Experts are convinced, however, that the brothers acted alone and had no links to any […]

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Reassessing the Caucasus after Boston explosion

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sergei Markedonov, special to RBTH – April 24, 2013) The bombing during the Boston Marathon brought Chechnya back to the attention of the West, but the public, the press and the politicians fail to realize the situation there has changed ­ and the threat is greater. Sergey Markedonov is a visiting research fellow […]

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Boston Suspects’ Russian Parents to Visit US

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(RIA Novosti – MAKHACHKALA, April 24, 2013) ­ The Russian parents of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings have agreed to visit the United States to assist in the ongoing investigation into the crime, a police source said on Wednesday. A team from the US Embassy in Moscow has arrived in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan to speak […]

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Daghestani Insurgency Denies Any Role In Boston Bombings

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 22, 2013) The Daghestani wing of the North Caucasus insurgency has formally denied any role in the Boston Marathon bombings. In a brief statement posted on April 21 on the website vDagestan.com, its leaders stress that their primary enemy is Russia and they “are not engaged in military hostilities with the United […]

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The Boston Marathon Attack, the North Caucasus, and U.S.-Russian Relations

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Center for American Progress – Cory Welt – April 22, 2013) Cory Welt is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for American Progress and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs –www.ieres.org. In the days following the dramatic manhunt in Boston for surviving terrorism suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, […]

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For Tsarnaev Brothers, Family Model Broke Down

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 23, 2013) As more details surfaced Monday regarding the complex family history of the Tsarnaev brothers, suspected of detonating deadly bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the traditions of Caucasian families became a focus of inquiry into why Tamerlan and Dzhokhar may have turned into terrorists. The Tsarnaev […]

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Russian agency has suspected marathon bomber’s uncollected ID in its files – official

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Interfax – MAKHACHKALA, Russia – April 22, 2013) Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) has an uncollected Russian internal passport to the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in its files, a suspected co-perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombings killed by police who tried to arrest him, a senior FMS official said. In July 2012, Tsarnaev “filed an application saying that he had […]

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Is the Boston Attack a Ripple Effect of the Conflict in the North Caucasus?

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 75 – Valery Dzutsev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 22, 2013) The focus of the media on the suspected Boston bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers is fully justified, but understanding the wider context of the crime may be just as helpful (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/223152/). Whatever the brothers’ personal experience was, if […]

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The motivation of the Boston Bomber: The ethnic background of the Tsarnaev family must provide some clues to mass murder.

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(opendemocacy.net – Susan Richards – April 23, 2013) Susan Richards is a non-executive director and founder of openDemocracy. She has produced a number of feature films and written a prize-winning book, Epics of Everyday Life, about the lives of ordinary Russians in the transition from communism. Lost & Found in Russia, Encounters in the Deep Heartland, which covers the period […]

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Risks Seen as U.S. Media Spotlight North Caucasus

File Photo of Groznya, Looking out Through Hole in Damaged Building at City Landscape in Daylight

(RIA Novosti – Christopher Boian – WASHINGTON, April 22, 2013) A week ago, most Americans had never heard of the North Caucasus. But the region in southern Russia has abruptly filled TV screens in US homes after it became part of the Boston Marathon bombing story, and experts warn such speed reporting on a complex subject can distort as much […]

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Bombing Motive Sought for Brothers Who Differed in Style

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Goldman, Julie Bykowicz and Prashant Gopal – April 22, 2013) As investigators searched for a motive in the Boston Marathon bombings, the two brothers suspected in the attack emerged as markedly different personalities: the older moving closer toward Islamic fundamentalism, the younger socializing like a typical American college student. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, disrupted a service […]

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Hunt for Boston Clues Reveals Tangled Caucasus Web

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 22, 2013) The quest for answers to what possibly inspired Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev to plot two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon exposes the complex and convoluted history of the North Caucasus, which for centuries has instigated violence across Russia. The Boston bombings have shown how boiling […]

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Boston Bombing Seen as U.S.-Russian Intelligence Failure

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Leaning Towards Barack Hussein Obama With Flags Behind Them

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – April 22, 2013) Revelations that Moscow alerted Washington in early 2011 to suspicious behavior by one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, but did not provide additional information when asked, has raised questions about the effectiveness of bilateral counterterrorism cooperation. Though both sides have promised to focus on “all aspects of the […]

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Father Of Boston Bombing Suspects Says Situation Is ‘Clear Setup’

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 21, 2013) MAKHACHKALA, Russia — As media outlets scramble to understand more about the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, many relatives linked to the family in Makhachkala, Daghestan, are declining to talk to journalists. Nonetheless, the men’s father, Anzor Tsarnaev, did speak from an undisclosed location via telephone to RFE/RL’s Tom Balmforth […]

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After Boston, Putin Faces Questions About U.S. Visas on Call-In Show

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 22, 2013) Russians want to ask President Vladimir Putin on his televised call-in show this week about whether they will face U.S. visa restrictions after the Boston bombing attacks and why he is cracking down on his critics. Those are among the 28 most frequently asked questions that have been submitted by telephone and […]

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Profile of Tamerlan And Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Richard Solash, Claire Bigg – April 19, 2013) The young men identified as suspects in this week’s Boston Marathon bombing are brothers of ethnic Chechen origin with family ties in Central Asia, and at least of one of whom reportedly had taken an increased interest in Islam in recent years. The suspect who was captured alive […]

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Boston bombing suspects not known to Dagestani, Chechen security services

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Interfax – MOSCOW/GROZNY/MAKHACHKALA. April 19, 2013) Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are suspected of committing the Boston Marathon bomb attack, are not on the Chechen or Dagestani law enforcement agencies’ wanted lists. “The Tsarnaev brothers are not on our databases of those wanted,” the Dagestani Interior Ministry told Interfax. “We have one Tsarnaev, who did not pay an administrative […]

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For Boston Suspects, Was Chechnya’s Violent Past a Motive?

File Photo of Groznya, Looking out Through Hole in Damaged Building at City Landscape in Daylight

(RIA Novosti – Nabi Abdullaev – MOSCOW, April 19, 2013) ­ As investigators hunt for evidence about the Boston bombing suspects, some of their questions ­ like the American public’s ­ will focus on Russia’s restive North Caucasus, including the war-scarred republic of Chechnya, a region that has produced a number of violent militant groups, but none that has been […]

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Russia has no ‘operationally relevant information’ on Boston suspects – source

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Interfax Moscow, April 20, 2013) Russia has been unable to provide operationally relevant information on brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnayev (Tsarnaev). “Since the brothers Tsarnayev lived outside Russia, our special services were unable to provide our foreign partners with any operationally relevant information,” a source in the Russian special services told Interfax today. However, the source said that “joint work […]

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Chechen Brothers Linked to Boston Bombings

File Photo of Boston Bombings Aftermath with Ambulance and Security Personnel

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko, Jonathan Earle and Ezekiel Pfeifer – April 19, 2013) U.S. authorities have linked two Chechen brothers to the Boston bombings that killed three people and injured more than 170 this week, U.S. media reported Friday. The Russian Foreign Ministry told The Moscow Times that it was aware of the reports and looking into […]

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Boston bombing suspect’s account tracked down to Russia’s VKontakte social network

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Interfax – April 19, 2013) Internet users have tracked down an account in the social network VKontakte which allegedly belongs to a Boston bombing suspect. Links to the page which Boston Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnayev ran in the network, have emerged on other social networks. There is a notice on Tsarnayev’s page saying that its host last visited it at […]

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Boston bombing suspects’ father: My kids were framed

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(Interfax – MAKHACHKALA, April 19, 2013) An Interfax correspondent has managed to talk on the phone with a man introducing himself as Anzor, the father of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are suspected of committing the Boston Marathon bomb attack on Monday. “I learned about the incident from TV. My opinion is: the special services have framed my children, because […]

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