Russia sought FBI's help in 2011 to probe Boston suspect
By
Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia asked
the FBI in early 2011 to investigate Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan
Tsarnaev out of concern he had embraced radical Islam and was going to
travel to Russia to join underground groups, U.S. law enforcement
sources said on…
Russia sought FBI's help in 2011 to probe Boston suspect
By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball | Reuters – 1 hr 3 mins ago
By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia asked the FBI in early 2011 to investigate Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev
out of concern he had embraced radical Islam and was going to travel to
Russia to join underground groups, U.S. law enforcement sources said on
Saturday.
Russia's Federal Security Service,
or FSB, made a request for checks on Tsarnaev - who was killed after a
shootout with police on Thursday - to help an investigation of its own, a
U.S. government source said.
The Russians were not tipping off the FBI about a plot in the United States or any threat posed to U.S. interests, a law enforcement and national security source said on condition of anonymity.
The fact that there
was no warning about an attack in the United States may help shield the
Obama administration, spy agencies and law enforcement from criticism
that they failed to see the danger from Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger
brother, Dzhokhar, who are suspected of carrying out the twin bombings
that killed three people and injured over 170 on Monday at the Boston
Marathon.
Russia is battling Islamist militants in the volatile
North Caucasus where the Tsarnaev brothers - who are ethnic Chechens -
have family ties. But the number of tips from Moscow on possible
terrorism cases is "not that many," a senior U.S. law enforcement source
said.The FBI said a foreign government had raised the alarm over Tsarnaev but did not comment on whether it was Russia. The bureau said it "did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign" after interviewing Tsarnaev and his family, and checking his travel records and Internet activity in 2011. Those results were given to the foreign government in the summer of 2011, the FBI said.
The FBI found nothing to substantiate Russian allegations that Tsarnaev was a follower of radical Islam who was preparing to travel to Russia to join unspecified radical groups, a national security source said.
Tsarnaev flew to Russia the following year. Official
records show he left New York's JFK airport on January 12, 2012 for
Moscow and returned to the United States on July 17, 2012. It is unclear
what he did while in Russia or whether he traveled elsewhere during
that period.Republican U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher said Tsarnaev may well have been trained overseas by "radical elements."
"The two young men directly involved in this terrorist attack were both Chechen and clearly influenced by radical Islam. One of them may well have been trained with terrorist weapons by radical elements overseas," said Rohrabacher, a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs.
"The Chechen
connection indicates we should work more closely with Russia and other
nations who are also suffering the same kind of mayhem we have seen in Boston," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on
the identity of the two suspects, who moved to the United States more
than a decade ago after briefly living in Russia's volatile southern
region of Dagestan.Instead, he and Obama made positive statements about cooperation on counterterrorism in a phone conversation on Friday, suggesting both sides see an opportunity to improve strained relations between their countries.
(Additional reporting by John Shiffman; Editing by Alistair Bell and Paul Simao)
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