Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Boston Bombing Suspect Says No Ties to Terrorist Groups; Motivated by Hate for America, Christianity


A photograph of Djohar Tsarnaev, who is believed to be Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, is seen on his page of Russian social networking site Vkontakte (VK), as pictured on a monitor and a mobile phone in St. Petersburg April 19, 2013.


The captured suspect behind the Boston Marathon bombing, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has been answering questions by authorities regarding the attack, telling officials that he and his older brother, who was killed in a shootout, do not have ties to any terrorist organizations. New information has suggested, however, that they held strong anti-American and anti-Christian views.

ABC News revealed that Dzhokhar and his older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was shot down by police in Boston early Friday morning, had radicalized themselves over the Internet, but did not receive any direction or financing from overseas groups. Authorities believe that the brothers, who were born in Chechnya but had lived in the U.S. for close to a decade, were likely inspired by former al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in 2011.

"The older brother appeared to be the more radicalized of the two and was the one that drove the need to conduct the attack as well as the preparation for the attack that is building the bombs," said Seth Jones, a counter-terror expert at the RAND Corporation.

The brothers apparently used an al Qaeda Internet magazine to make the pressure cooker bombs, with the attack being largely put together by Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The Boston Marathon bombing last week left three people dead and injured close to 200 others.

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