Chechen Connection Suggests Possible Al-Qaeda Link to Boston

  News that two brothers from the Russian province of Chechnya who have lived in the United States for several years were behind the April 16 bombings makes it likely that they were at least so-called “homegrown terrorists,” possibly radicalized by al-Qaeda propaganda on the Internet. There also is a strong possibility that the two men were somehow recruited and trained by al-Qaeda operatives to stage the Boston attack.

There is new information that Russia may have asked the FBI to investigate

 the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and that the FBI allegedly warned his

 mother that he was an "extremist leader" who was being controlled by

 extremist websites.

Although this story is still unfolding, the involvement in the Boston bombing of

 Chechen nationals and the type of explosives used in the attack fit the profile

 of al-Qaeda terrorist planning over the last few years. 

The FBI revealed yesterday morning that two brothers from Chechnya who have

 been living in Massachusetts, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother 

Tamerlan, 26, were suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. The two were

 involved in the fatal shooting of a police officer Thursday night, a robbery and a

 carjacking. They reportedly threw explosives out of the windows of their car while 

fleeing from police. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended last night after a standoff with police when

 he tried to hide in a boat parked in the backyard of a house in the Boston suburb 

of Watertown.  The suspect reportedly was captured and is in serious condition at 

a Boston area hospital. 

There have been conflicting press reports about how long the two men have been 

in the United States and whether they may have obtained military training abroad.

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