thecable.foreignpolicy.com

Posted By Josh Rogin Friday, April 19, 2013 - 8:18 PM

President Barack Obama spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday evening and thanked the Russian leader for unspecified cooperation in the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings.

As law enforcement officials surrounded the Watertown location where 19 year old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was suspected to be hiding, the White House released a read out of the Obama-Putin phone call, which referenced the United States and Russia working together on the Boston bombing issue.

“President Putin expressed his condolences on behalf of the Russian people for the tragic loss of life in Boston. President Obama thanked President Putin for those sentiments, and praised the close cooperation that the United States has received from Russia on counter-terrorism, including in the wake of the Boston attack,” the statement said. “The two leaders agreed to continue our cooperation on counter-terrorism and security issues going forward.”

National Security Staff Spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told The Cable the White House won’t say what kind of cooperation the Russians provided.

“We’ll decline to provide further details at this point,” she said.

——>Continued

I guess Russia was the unnamed foreign country that warned America about these terrorists 2 years ago. I want to thank Putin also and I hope he held back the “I told you so’s”.

PS: The right wing American freak out on Obama thanking Putin at the FP comment section is delight to behold (at least it was for me).

I am guessing foreign govt in question here are the Russians or one of the ex-Soviet republics where the dead terrorist lived in once and re-visited.

FBI talked to older Boston suspect

By KEVIN ROBILLARD | 4/19/13 7:57 PM EDT
The Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed one of the suspects in Monday’s bombing of the Boston Marathon two years ago about his ties to extremist groups, POLITICO has confirmed.

The FBI said the interview of Tamerlan Tsarnaeva, the older brother, came at the request of a foreign government. The FBI found nothing “derogatory.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaeva died early Friday morning following a shootout with police. HIs younger brother and suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaeva, was apprehended later Friday.

—->Continued

Read more: politico.com

Sources all over the net.

Mighty Mighty Bosstones

The Impression That I Get lyrics

Songwriters: Barrett, Dicky / Gittleman, Joseph

From the album Let’s Face It

Have you ever been close to tragedy
Or been close to folks who have?
Have you ever felt a pain so powerful
So heavy you collapse?

No? Well…
I never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if
I never had to knock on wood
And I’m glad I haven’t yet
Because I’m sure it isn’t good
That’s the impression that I get.

Have you ever had the odds stacked up so high
You need a strength most don’t possess?
Or has it ever come down to do or die
You’ve got to rise above the rest?

No? Well…
I never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if
I never had to knock on wood
And I’m glad I haven’t yet
Because I’m sure it isn’t good
That’s the impression that I get.

I’m not a coward,
I’ve just never been tested
I’d like to think that if I was,
I would pass
Look at the tested and think there but for the grace go on
I might be a coward,
I’m afraid of what I might find out.

I’ve never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if
I’ve never had to knock on wood
And I’m glad i haven’t yet
Because I’m sure it isn’t good
That’s the impression that I get.

Never had to, I better knock on wood…
Cause I know someone who has
Which makes wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if I

Never had to, I better knock on wood…
Cause I’m sure it isn’t good
Am I’m glad I havn’t yet…

That’s the Impression that I get.

mzv.cz

Statement of the Ambassador of the Czech Republic on the Boston terrorist attack

19.04.2013 / 21:27

As many I was deeply shocked by the tragedy that occurred in Boston earlier this month. It was a stark reminder of the fact that any of us could be a victim of senseless violence anywhere at any moment.

As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.

As the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman noted in his message to President Obama, the Czech Republic is an active and reliable partner of the United States in the fight against terrorism. We are determined to stand side by side with our allies in this respect, there is no doubt about that.

Petr Gandalovič
Ambassador of the Czech Republic

Any speculation? I recall American al-Qaeda Anwar al-Awlaki urging potential terrorists in the USA to just buy rifles and guns legally in gun shows and use them on Americans.

jewishjournal.com

April 19, 2013

Chechnya, Tsarnaev and terror

BY TED RALL

According to media accounts based on police reports, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is a 19-year-old man named Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a resident of Boston who lived in the former Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan and may or may not be Chechen in origin. He identifies himself as a Muslim.

…snip…

That said, a lot of people are unfamiliar with Kyrgyzstan so I thought I would set up a little bit of light on the subject since I have been there many times and have studied Central Asia, its politics and culture.

Generally speaking, Kyrgyzstan is divided between its secular Sovietized North, centered around the capital of Bishkek, and its conservative Muslim south, centered around the Fergana Valley city of Osh. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Kyrgyz Republic represented one of the great hopes for democratization in former Soviet Central Asia. It had a flawed but democratically elected president, one of the least corrupt police forces in the region, and was relatively peaceful. Largely it was free of Western influence because it did not have oil or natural gas reserves coveted by Russia or the United States. Therefore, it did not suffer from the famous oil curse.

In recent years the most important political development in Kyrgyzstan was the 2005 Tulip Revolution, which saw radical Islamist insurgents and financed by the American CIA and based around Osh topple the regime of Pres. Akayev, who fled into exile rather than order his security forces to fire upon his people. Nobody can be 100% certain why the United States decided to repeat the same mistakes that it made in Afghanistan during the 1980s, but it isn’t a huge stretch to assume that the fact that Akayev was demanding increased rent on the US air base at Manas that was established after the 9/11 attacks may have had something to do with it.

Since 2005 the political situation in the Boston suspect’s homeland has deteriorated. Some analysts consider it nearly a failed state. Certainly the central government has lost control of much of the South. For example, when I tried to cross from Tajikistan into southeastern Kyrygzstan at Sary Tash in 2008, border guards informed me that they had not heard from Bishkek in years. In fact, they no longer even had a passport stamp. It was very clear that local warlords were in charge of mining and other concerns there.

Radical Islamists, always active in the southern part of the country, have become emboldened since 2005. One insurgent group, the Islamic Movement of Turkestan, formerly known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, has attracted self radicalized Muslims from all over the world, including a substantial faction from Chechnya. Chechnya, well-informed readers will recall, was destroyed by forces under the direction of Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin. While we in the West may have forgotten this episode, Chechens are well known as ferocious fighters who never forget a grudge. Jihad is alive and well for them.

…snip…

It may well be that his trajectory as an ethnic Chechen brought him into contact with radical Muslims in Kyrgyzstan. Although it seems like a stretch for Americans, Muslims around the world often see America and Russia acting in concert. It would then be another logical leap to attack America here yes, including attacking innocent civilians, because after all, Russia attacks innocent civilians in Muslim countries and in places like Chechnya, and the United States does so in other places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Of course, all of this is conjecture.

Ted Rall’s most recent book is “Wake Up, You’re Liberal! How We Can Take America Back from the Right” (Soft Skull Press).

The original link:

rall.com

fullcomment.nationalpost.com

How did Chechnya’s culture of terror come to Boston?

Jonathan Kay | 13/04/19 | Last Updated: 13/04/19 2:56 PM ET

For the last week, most of the world has been playing a lurid guessing game in regard to the Boston bombings. Arabs? White supremacists? A loner nut?

But Chechens? Didn’t see that coming — especially Chechens who apparently haven’t lived in the North Caucasus for many years.

Yet the Boston bombings wouldn’t be the first time that radicals who trace their ancestry and grievances to that region have taken up arms against the United States. As CIA veteran Gary Schroen wrote in his 2005 book, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Chechens were among the most bloodthirsty enemies that U.S. special forces and allied troops faced in their campaign to oust the Taliban from power in the months after 9’11.

Schroen describes one battle this way: “‘Chechnya! Chechnya!’ The cry was picked up by the others. ‘Chechnya!’ A wave of panic and fear … swept through the line of [Afghan] men [fighting alongside U.S. special forces and CIA officers] on the hilltop … As if on signal, the entire group of 60 men turned and began to run from their positions. Craig was shouting for them to stop, and grabbed at one man near him. But the man jerked free, staggered, and turned to join his comrades in a headlong run down the backside of the hill.”

The Afghans who fought alongside the Americans 12 years ago were tough, battle-hardened men inhabiting one of the most violent places on the planet. But they still were absolutely terrified by Chechen jihadis, who were regarded as pitiless and fanatical — even by the standards of Islamist terrorism. After watching his entire force of five dozen men run shrieking from a trio of Chechens jogging nonchalantly toward their camp, Schroen observed: “Those are three of the bravest men I’ve ever seen, or they’re [crazy]. Either way, I don’t want to stay around and meet them.” He ends up calling in a B-52, which obliterates the Chechens with a 2,000-pound bomb, even as they taunted the American-led force with shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” (combined, bizarrely, with crotch-grabbing and obscene hip gyrations).

It is not just on proper battlefields where Chechen jihadis have attained a reputation for viciousness: Two of the most morally horrific jihadi attacks against civilians the world ever has witnessed were committed in this formerly obscure North Caucasus neighbourhood. In 1995, Chechen Islamists attacked a hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk and took 2,000 hostages — including women and their newborn infants. (More than 100 hostages died.) A decade later, Chechen and Ingush gunmen attacked a school in the town of Beslan and took over 1,000 hostages — including 777 children. Almost 400 people died.

This is terrorism of the most hideous form: Even al-Qaeda does not make a practice of targeting elementary schools and maternity awards. This week’s killing of three Marathon-watchers in Boston, including an eight-year-old boy, was seen in the West as an epic act of savagery. But by the standards of Chechen terrorists, it was standard fare.

——>Continued

english.ahram.org.eg

UPDATE 7: Boston suspect’s web page venerates Islam, Chechen independence

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston bombing suspect, calls for Chechen independence on Islamic websites

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev posted links to Islamic websites and others calling for Chechen independence on what appears to be his page on a Russian language social networking site.

Abusive comments in Russian and English were flooding onto Tsarnaev’s page on VK, a Russian-language social media site, on Friday after he was identified as a suspect in the bombing of the Boston marathon.

Police launched a massive manhunt for Tsarnaev, 19, after killing his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a shootout overnight.

On the site, the younger Tsarnaev identifies himself as a 2011 graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It says he went to primary school in Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan, a province in Russia that borders Chechnya, and lists his languages as English, Russian and Chechen.

His “World view” is listed as “Islam” and his “Personal priority” is “career and money”.

He has posted links to videos of fighters in the Syrian civil war and to Islamic web pages with titles like “Salamworld, my religion is Islam” and “There is no God but Allah, let that ring out in our hearts”.

He also has links to pages calling for independence for Chechnya, a region of Russia that lost its bid for secession after two wars in the 1990s.

—->Continued

Here is a post of mine from 2003 about an American Chechen rebel and the possible back door American support for the Chechen rebels before 9/11 happened.