Alan Cullison: Mysteries of Boston Bombing

Fatima Tlisova interviews WSJ's Alan Cullison (VOA, Russian):

http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/content/alan-calison-on-boston/1677311.html

Strangers Abroad

In the The Atlantic, Michael Weiss examines the journey of Steven Seagal and a U.S. Congressional delegation to what they call the land of the "Chechnyans":

It is unclear as yet as to whether or not they went on to Chechnya, much less under the auspices of the unlikely cultural statesman Seagal, who apparently reached out directly to Rohrabacher. Politico has described an internal wrangle within the delegation about the wisdom of traveling alongside the star of Above the Law to the Kremlin's Caucasian suzerainty, which is run by a warlord who is nothing if not above the law himself.

U.S. - Russia Relations After Boston - 2

North Caucasus analyst Alexander Cherkasov, interviewed by Vladimir Kara-Murza on Radio Svoboda's Grani vremeni programme:

Of course, the fact that the main issue in Russian-American relations might be a topic that isn't Syria at all ... but rather the Boston attack – has somehow, in my opinion, made the subject of the situation of NGOs in Russia even more relevant. Above all, the organizations that undertake independent expert studies – either the monitoring of civil rights, in particular, civil rights in the areas where counter-terrorism operations are underway, or the work with refugees like that done by Svetlana Gannushkina. The Boston terrorist attack is an event that everyone is trying to duck responsibility for. The Chechen authorities say it’s nothing to do with them, the bombers lived mostly in Central Asia and then in the States, and the one who did come to Russia went to Dagestan. The Russian authorities are washing their hands of the whole affair. I would point out that this is the second time in the last half-century when there has been a need for close cooperation between the two countries. The last occasion was the Kennedy assassination, when the Soviet Union had to provide information about the presence of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Soviet Union… At a time when the powers that be on all sides have interests of their own, only independent expert organizations like Human Rights Watch or Memorial can say how far this terrorist attack may be linked to the North Caucasus underground, or the Chechen sector of the North Caucasus underground. Right now we are seeing that those organizations that are working in the region more intensively are either being called "foreign agents" or are having every square inch of their activities minutely examined.

U.S.- Russia Relations After Boston

U.S.- Russia Relations After Boston

In Novoye Vremya, three Russian political analysts are asked how the events surrounding the Tsarnaev brothers will affect Russia-U.S. relations [my tr.]:

Vyacheslav Nikonov, President of the "Politika" Foundation:

They will have a bad effect.  When I saw the reports  about Boston, I immediately thought that a "Chechen trace" would definitely be found.  It’s not for nothing that  Kadyrov was included on the "Magnitsky list" .

Igor Bunin, Director-General of the Center for Political Technologies:

The most significant thing is that  Russia immediately showed sympathy for the United States, and offered its moral support. I would draw  attention to the reaction of Putin, who immediately expressed his condolences and, having flown in [to Sochi] for a  U.S- Russia hockey tournament, organized a minute of silence. This was reminiscent of the situation on September 11  2001, when  Putin was one of the first [leaders] to support the United States in the fight against terrorism. And now, making use of the same theme, he  is trying to repair relations with the United States. Back then, however, the U.S. was able to provide real assistance in connection with  the Afghan "Northern Alliance"... with which our FSB had close ties ...

This time an offer of  assistance is more difficult, as it’s unclear how it should be expressed. Most probably, the suspects are linked to "Al-Qaeda". But the fact that they came from the Russian hinterland has almost no significance. For example. Osama bin Laden, the world’s biggest terrorist, came from Saudi Arabia, but the U.S. did not then sever relations with Saudi Arabia.

Dmitry Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center:

I don’t think relations between the U.S. and Russia will alter dramatically. In Russia there are very powerful circles that promote anti-Americanism. and in the United States there are those who deny the legitimacy of the current Russian government.

In America, the majority of public opinion doesn’t perceive what we call "Chechen and North Caucasus terrorism" as a problem of international terrorism. When people [in the West] talk about international terrorism, they’re referring to September 11, 2001 in New York, July 7, 2005 in London, March 11, 2004 in Madrid – they’re not talking about what has happened in Moscow and other Russian cities, such as the apartment bombings and subway terrorist attacks, they don’t see those as an international issue, but rather as a purely internal Russian one. The Russian leadership aims to see to it that that terrorists operating on Russian territory also qualify as international terrorists in the West.

Inside Out

In EDM, Mairbek Vatchagaev writes that "locating Tamerlan’s ideological trajectory in the North Caucasus may prove to be little more than a distraction." He points out that, with impaired links to Chechen culture, Tsarnaev appears to have been relatively isolated from the Chechen world, and probably picked up his Islamist views in Boston, from local Salafists. This would account for his hostility to U.S. Middle East policy, and his choice of the U.S., rather than Russia, as the target for a terrorist attack.

The article also draws attention to the fact that it was only some time after the Boston attack that the potential North Caucasus link began to be mentioned, giving the Moscow authorities an opportunity to become involved in the investigation:

In all this tragedy, Moscow seems to consider itself a winner. President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference that Russia had long sought cooperation from the US in the field of international terrorism (www.golos-ameriki.ru/content/putins-live-show/1648501.html). There was more of a reprimand of the US in Putin’s words than an admission of Russia’s own guilt for the attack in Boston. Moscow interprets terrorism in quite broad terms and includes everyone who is dissatisfied with the Russian political system and seeks to secede from Russia.

It has been observed that one point not addressed in the piece - though raised obliquely in one passage - is the question of whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev might have been a Russian agent.

Meanwhile, an RFE/RL report considers the role social media may have played in interactions between Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his Kazakh college friends Dias Kadyrbaev and Azamat Tazhayakov:

The vKontakte post by Kadyrbaev is striking mostly because of its timing. When it was posted there had already been reports of a shoot-out that had left one suspect dead and another on the run, but at the time, most of the world -- perhaps including police -- would still not have been able to connect a name to the grainy image of suspect no. 2 being shown on television screens. Kadyrbaev though, had allegedly already known for up to nine hours.

Boston: Leaks and Unanswered Questions

For reasons best known to themselves, the Russian security services are currently leaking a fairly large amount of information about the dead Boston marathon bomber suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. A Novaya Gazeta report published on April 27 gives data provided by Dagestan's Center for Combating Extremism which flatly contradicts an earlier interior ministry statement that Tsarnaev only spent 3 or 4 days in the republic in 2012. The new information says that in April 2012

 aгенты силовиков неоднократно «фиксировали» его вместе с неким Махмудом Мансуром Нидалем

 an 18-year old youth of Palestinian-Kumyk ethnicity whom they suspected of links with the Dagestani Islamic insurgency and of taking part in a terrorist attack on a police checkpoint in May 2012 (Nidal was killed during a special operation in Makhachkala on May 19 last year.)

Writing in EDM, Valery Dzutsev notes the NG report's description of the treatment given to the 21 year-old Russian-Canadian Muslim convert William Plotnikov, who was detained and tortured by Russian/Dagestani security services in the town of Izerbash south of Makhachkala in 2010, provided them with a list of contacts, including Tsarnaev, and was killed by Dagestani police in July 2012:

The Russian security services admitted they extensively interrogated Plotnikov, a suspected radical who was a citizen of Canada and possibly of Russia. The authorities interrogated Plotnikov in 2010 despite the fact that they had practically no incriminatory information on him and thus eventually released him. At the same time, they followed up on Tsarnaev, who allegedly met and had meetings with Mahmud Mansur Nidal, a known radical, but did not even bother to question Tsarnaev, who was even more susceptible to being interrogated by the Russians since he apparently was applying for a Russian passport and did not have US citizenship.

Dzutsev continues:

The Russian media displayed an uncharacteristic attitude toward the suspected terrorists. On April 28, one of the country’s major TV channels, NTV, featured an interview with the mother of suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, in which she again insisted that her sons had been “framed.” The substantive part of the interview revealed little that was new, but what was interesting was the very fact that she was featured on a major Russian TV channel (http://www.ntv.ru/peredacha/CT/m23400/o163397/).

This is not normally the way relatives of suspected terrorists are treated in Russia. On the one hand, Russian media are threatened by the law against “propagating terrorism,” and featuring a suspected terrorist’s mother would count as such an act. In addition, the relatives of suspected terrorists are often treated with suspicion, based on an implicit expectation that they could carry out an attack to avenge the killing of their relative. Zubeidat and Anzor Tsarnaev do not seem to have experienced any of these usual attitudes in Russia. If the Russian security services had prior information about Tamerlan’s attempt to join the North Caucasian insurgency, then they surely cannot trust his parents. Yet the Russian security services appear to be courting the parents instead of persecuting them. Zubeidat and Anzor Tsarnaev reportedly left Dagestan for Moscow. While in Dagestan, the police protected Anzor Tsarnaev from excessive contacts with journalists. This level of protection for someone whose sons are accused of terrorist activities, not only abroad, but also domestically, is highly unusual in Russia.

Update: Minding Russia has a complete translation of Irina Gordienko's Novaya Gazeta article, with more background and discussion.

Money, Guns, Islam and Football

Sam Knight (GQ), on Dagestan's Anzhi Makhachkala Football Club:

When you land at Makhachkala airport, the baggage hall is decked out with posters of the team's Russian and Dagestani players (and Eto'o). Huge posters line the highways and street corners: "Anji: New History", "Anji: Territory of Peace". Not subtle, really. Neither is the symbolism of the new 30,000-seat, "Anji- Arena", built on the bones of an old stadium, and due to open in March - and rumoured to be staging a game at Russia's 2018 World Cup - which is slap-bang next to the housing complex for the local FSB headquarters (the successor to the KGB). Then there is the academy, which ran trials for 2,000 Dagestani boys last autumn, and the new football pitches being built across Makhachkala, to give young men something to do.

Tsarnaevs' News Conference: a Transcript

The New York Times has published a transcript of the news conference given yesterday in Makhachkala, Dagestan, by the parents of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Black Holes

At the end of a recent VOA interview with North Caucasus expert Jean-François Ratelle, there's this:

Ф.Т.: В России и в США теракт в Бостоне и причастность к нему братьев Царнаевых вызвала бурю дискуссий и спекуляций. Многие говорят о «неотвеченных вопросах» и «черных дырах» в этой истории. Есть что-либо, что лично вам кажется странным?

Ж-Фр. Р.: Самая важная «черная дыра» – это отсутствие объективной информации о том времени, которое Тамерлан провел в России. Мы не получили данных о том, вступал ли он в контакт с экстремистами в Чечне или Дагестане, был ли он допущен в тренировочный лагерь? Я не исключаю, что подобная информация всплывет на каком-то этапе из российских источников. Но мне кажется очень интересным тот факт, что российское правительство, обладая информацией о том, что Тамерлан направлялся на Кавказ для проникновения в тренировочный лагерь – о чем они предупредили ранее американское ФБР – позволило ему беспрепятственно проникнуть на Кавказ и оставаться там так долго.

FT: In Russia and the U.S.the terror attack in Boston and the Tsarnaev brothers’ involvement in it has caused a storm of debate and speculation. Many are talking about "unanswered questions" and "black holes" in this story. Is there anything that you personally find strange?

J.-Fr. R: The most important "black hole" is the lack of objective information about the time that Tamerlan spent in Russia. We haven’t received data on whether he entered into contact with extremists in Chechnya or Dagestan, or whether he was admitted to a training camp. I don’t rule out the possibility that such information will pop up at some stage from Russian sources. But I find it very interesting that that the Russian government, being in possession of information that Tamerlan was heading to the Caucasus in order to join a training camp – something they had earlier warned the American FBI about – allowed him to pass unobstructed into the Caucasus and to stay there for so long. [my tr.]

                         

The Location of Terror

Yulia Latynina (ej.ru), on the Boston bombers: 

Как сказал в одной из своих проповедей Саид Бурятский, который до того как стать исламистом-моджахедом, был простым русским парнем Александром Тихомировым из Улан-Удэ, «прошли те времена, когда мы сражались за свободу Чечни, за это языческое понятие. Теперь мы сражаемся за Аллаха. Прошли те времена, когда каждый чеченец был нам брат. Теперь русский, если он моджахед, нам брат, а чеченец, если он кяфир, наш злейший враг».

То есть то, что Царнаевы чеченцы – это не удивительно, но это совершенно неважно, так же, как неважно, что Троцкий – еврей. В Бостоне они сражались не за свободу Чечни. Они сражались за всемирный Халифат.

Они вели оборонительный джихад.

As Said Buryatsky, who before becoming an Islamist mujahid was an ordinary Russian guy, Alexander Tikhomirov from Ulan-Ude, said in one of his sermons: "Gone are the days when we fought for the freedom of Chechnya, for that pagan  idea. Now we are fighting for Allah. Gone are the days when every Chechen was our brother. Now the Russian, if he's a muhajid, is our brother, and the Chechen, if  he's a kafir, our worst enemy. "

So the fact that the Tsarnaevs are Chechens is not surprising. but it is totally unimportant, just as unimportant as the fact that Trotsky was Jewish. What they were fighting for in Boston was not the freedom of Chechnya. They were fighting for a worldwide Caliphate.

They were waging defensive jihad

Websites

RFE/RL has republished Liz Fuller's 2010 overview of Internet sites linked to the North Caucasus insurgency.

It is of course impossible even to guess what role the Internet glorification of the insurgency plays in mobilizing young men and women to "head for the forest" and join the fighters' ranks. But to judge from the Chechen authorities' determination to create equally attractive counterpropaganda sites, that role certainly is not negligible.

Non-cooperation

Fiona Hill, director of the Center on the United States and Europe, and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, on the limits of cooperation with Russia (MSNBC):

The Russian services still see the U.S. as the “main opponent”––a term often used by Vladimir Putin [the glavnyy protivnik in Russian]––that must be countered. This level of mutual mistrust is a significant barrier to the kind of operational information sharing that would be required in pursuing the Boston bombers Chechen connections and other potential cases.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and North Caucasus radicalism

Valery Dzutsev, writing in Eurasia Daily Monitor: 

Whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev had some dealings with the Russian security services or with the North Caucasian insurgency—or with both—during his visit in 2012, the fact remains that less than a year after his lengthy trip he appears to have committed a terrorist attack on US soil. This invites a double-pronged response to the external side of the terrorist threat, contingent upon final results of the investigation.

First, the United States may have to start paying greater attention to resolving the conflict in the North Caucasus. The Russian authorities have emphasized that the situation in the region is an internal Russian affair, but in light of the latest events, the situation in the North Caucasus in all likelihood has started to have an adverse effect on other countries and ceased being simply Russia’s domestic matter. Second, the US should decide whether Russia has joined the cohort of states, such as Pakistan, where radicals are trained or inspired to carry out attacks against Western countries. If so, travel and extensive contacts with Russia by certain individuals will likely become more intensely monitored.

Boston - 2

Andrei Babitsky, in Ekho Kavkaza:

"Вы сказали, что они выходцы из Чечни. Нет, они выходцы из Кыргызстана, насколько я могу судить по информации, опубликованной в СМИ, несколько лет они прожили в Дагестане, а потом переехали в Америку. Я не думаю, что это как-то повлияет на активность северокавказского подполья, поскольку все-таки на Северном Кавказе эта активность заметно снижается, но то, что в такой своеобразной конкурентной борьбе с арабами за право считаться передовым отрядом глобального джихада чеченцы сегодня одерживают убедительную победу, – это очевидно."

"You said that they come from Chechnya. No. They come from Kyrgyzstan, as far as I can tell from the information published in the media. They lived for a few years in Dagestan, and then moved to America. I don't think it will somehow affect the activity of the North Caucasus underground, because in the North Caucasus that activity is markedly diminishing. But that in this strange competition with the Arabs for the right to be the vanguard of global jihad the Chechens today are winning a landslide victory - that's obvious. "

Boston

Igor Rotar, writing in Rosbalt.ru:

...очень многие в США не верят, что теракт готовился за рубежом. "Mне кажется, что это просто двое разочаровавшихся американских детей, которые, к сожалению, направили свой гнев против своих же собратьев. Увы, подобные случаи были и раньше", — говорит "Росбалту" профессор политологии университета Джорджа Мейсона в штате Вирджиния Эрик Макглинчи. Отметим также, что эта версия не только не выглядит совершенно нелепой, но и чрезвычайно выгодна администрации президента Обамы, так как в этом случае можно избежать обвинений в непрофессионализме спецслужб.

...a great many people in the U.S. do not believe that the attack was prepared abroad. "I think it's just two disaffected American kids who unfortunately directed their anger against their fellow humans. Alas, there have been such cases before,"   Eric McGlinchey, political science professor at George Mason University, tells Rosbalt. Let's just observe that this version not only looks completely absurd, but is also extremely helpful to the Obama administration, as in that case one can avoid accusations of incompetence by the special services. 

Подробнее:http://www.rosbalt.ru/main/2013/04/22/1120743.html