Yesterday we reported [3]that the initial, and largely expected, response by the father of the Boston bombing suspects, Anzor Tsarnaev, was that they had been set up by US secret services. As RT reported further [4], in an interview with Russian television the brothers’ father Anzor Tsarnaev also claimed that they are innocent and somebody might have set them up. "I’m sure about my children, in their purity. I don’t know what happened and who did this. God knows and he will punish them,” he told Zvezda channel. “Somebody might have set them up. I don’t know who and because of their cowardice killed the boy."
The father said he was unable to contact his sons or other relatives. “Everything is switched off. I can’t reach my brother there either. I can’t reach anyone! I just want information. Now I fear for my boy, that they will now shoot him dead and then will say 'He had a gun'.”
“I fear for my son, for his life. They should arrest him, bring him, but alive. Justice should investigate who is right and who is wrong,” he said.
Mr Tsarnaev recently spoke to his elder son, Tamerlan [Suspect #1], telling him that he should take care of his younger brother. Speaking of the Boston marathon bombing he told his son “Ok, Thanks to Allah you were not close to there and did not suffer.”
“I remember I even asked “Who could do something like that?”
“We just talked. I asked him about our Dzhokhar [Suspect #2], how was he. I told him, he should help him out and keep an eye on him, so that he studies well. I told him ‘You left school, got married too early, but the kid should finish [his education]’. Because this is life – those who don’t study work a lot and work hard. That’s why I was telling them study”.
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As said up front: largely an expected reaction of shock and initial denial that one's children ended up behaving in a less than anticipated fashion. So it was not unexpected that the mother also decided to go the conspiracy route, and allege the boys conduct was "set up" and that the FBI had been following them for years.
[5]
Again from RT [4]:
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva maintains her younger son is innocent and like so many of the brothers’ acquaintances, claims they were good, courteous kids and model students – especially the younger 19-year-old Dzhokhar. A US citizen who is presently in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, she revealed to RT some suspicions of her own.
Grief-stricken at the latest developments in the case, Zubeidat expressed her dismay at the allegations, recounting Dzhokhar’s life in the US and talking of his status among his peers and friends: he was an honors student, loved by many of his friends and teachers. And his older brother Tamerlan was a star athlete and student, whose ambition was to one day appear on the US Olympic wrestling team.
But her biggest suspicion surrounding the case was the constant FBI surveillance she said her family was subjected to over the years. She is surprised that having been so stringent with the entire family, the FBI had no idea the sons were supposedly planning a terrorist act.
“They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me…they were telling me that he [the older, 26-y/o Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act! Never ever is this true, my sons are innocent!”
When asked if maybe she didn’t know about some of her sons’ more secret aspirations and dark secrets, she said “That’s impossible. My sons would never keep a secret.”
Finally, she said that if she could speak to her youngest – Dzhokhar, she would tell him, “Save your life and tell the truth, that you haven’t done anything, that this is a set up!”
A clip of the above:
More deranged appeals to some conspiracy theory involving the FBI? Possibly.
But then we learn that the FBI did indeed interview Tamerlan nearly two years ago. From AP [6]:
A foreign government told the FBI in early 2011 about information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE'-ehv), one of the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, was a follower of radical Islam.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout, and his younger brother was captured alive. They were identified by authorities and relatives as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade.
According to FBI, the foreign government said that based on its information, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a strong believer and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the U.S. for travel to the country's region to join unspecified underground groups.
The FBI says it interviewed Tsarnaev and relatives, and did not find any domestic or foreign terrorism activity.
It did? Because suddenly questions emerge:
- What did the FBI inquiry involve?
- What unspecified "underground groups"?
- Have the same "underground groups" recruited more young people from Boston or neighboring cities?
- Who made the decision to absolve Tamerlan of any suspicion?
- Which "foreign government" demanded that the US FBI get involved in the life of a then 24 year old boy and under what pretext?
- Also, and unrelated, why were both parents abroad?
Dead men tell not tales, and Tamerlan is now permanently muted, so it is the FBI's word, as secret as it may, be against that of a dead man.
As for his brother: one wonders how quickly will he recuperate, or will his serious (or critical as was reported by Bloomberg) condition in hosptial suddenly deteriorate to a condition of just as terminal silence, thus tying up all the loose ends?
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Update: From the AP [7], we learn that the according to the official narrative, the Russian KGB successor, the FSB, was the entity that advised the FBI that Tamerlan was a "radical Islam follower."
The Russian FSB intelligence security service told the FBI in early 2011 about information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, was a follower of radical Islam, two law enforcement officials said Saturday.
According to an FBI news release issued Friday night, a foreign government said that based on its information, Tsarnaev was a strong believer and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the U.S. for travel to the Russian region to join unspecified underground groups.
The FBI did not name the foreign government, but the two law enforcement officials identified the FSB as the provider of the information to one of the FBI’s field offices and also to FBI headquarters in Washington. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.
One by one all the dominoes fall into place.