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Jamestown Staff & Fellows
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President
Editor, China Brief
Program Associate
Program Associate/Events Coordinator
Managing Editor of Global Terrorism Analysis
Director of Programs for the Balkans, Caucasus & Central Asia
Senior Fellow - China Program
Senior Fellow - Eurasia Program
Senior Fellow
Senior Fellow - Eurasia Program
Senior Fellow
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A Preliminary Profile of the Boston Bombers: The Tsarnaev Brothers
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By Mairbek Vatchagaev
 The
Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan, 26 years old, and 19-year-old Jokhar, have
been accused of carrying out the bombing at the Boston Marathon on
Monday, April 15. Tamerlan has died from injuries sustained from a
shootout with police on Friday, April 19. While, as of the publication
of this article, the younger brother, Jokhar, is still at large.
The Tsarnaev family used to reside in Kyrgyzstan. They probably
ended up in Kyrgyzstan after mass deportation of Chechens from the
North Caucasus in 1944. Today, there are approximately 20,000 ethnic
Chechens still residing in Kyrgyzstan. Shortly before the onset of the
second Russian-Chechen war in September 1999, the Tsarnaev family moved
to their homeland in Chechnya. After the war began in 1999, they moved
to Dagestan, having apparently become refugees. The fact that they
resided in Makhachkala and not in Khasavyurt, as most other ethnic
Chechens in the republic, indicates that they had the financial means to
live in the capital of Dagestan, which is quite expensive. They also
had relatives in the city and were able to send their children to one of
the best schools
in Makhachkala, School #1. The younger brother, Jokhar Tsarnaev, went
to this school only for one year where he completed the first grade (http://www.zman.com/news/2013/04/19/149396.html).
Subsequently, the family was divided as the father,
Anzor, stayed in Makhachkala, while the rest of the family started
looking for ways to emigrate from the North Caucasus. His mother,
Zubeidat, had four children: two sons and two daughters, who managed to
emigrate legally to the United States. Once in the US, she
received permanent residence for herself and her children. The mother’s
first name, Zubeidat, suggests she was of Dagestani origin and that is
probably why the family moved to Dagestan in the first place.
Having settled in the Boston area, the Tsarnaevs tried to adapt
to their new home. The elder brother, Tamerlan, received a degree in
engineering and was a boxer, who reportedly dreamed of competing in
sporting events under the US flag. Tamerlan received US resident status
in 2007 (http://lenta.ru/news/2013/04/19/anzor/).
The second brother, 19-year-old Jokhar, had only just begun to
attend college. On his Internet page of the online social network
VK.com, he described his views and also listed several groups of which
he was a member. Jokhar was a member of three Muslim groups, but none of
the groups could be described as terrorist or jihadist; they rather
provided information about Islam. One of the groups, for instance,
Salamword collected funds for people suffering with cancer. The second
group, Islam.Muslims.Islam, simply spread photographs of mosques from
around the world. The third group, called Lya ‘iLyaha’iLla-Pust Zvuchit V
Nashikh Serdtsakh, does nothing besides quoting Muslim hadiths.
There does not appear to be much, if any indication, that Jokhar
had any connection to jihadist groups or sympathized with the most
well-known terrorist organization in the North Caucasus called the
Caucasus Emirate, or any other similar groups. On the contrary,
in one of his blog entries, he laments having no American friends,
having lived in the country for so long. All of his friends were from
the former Soviet Union.
Another surprising piece of evidence suggests that Jokhar had
accessed his webpage at 3 o’clock Boston time, but did not leave any
comments. It was unclear whether it was AM or PM time (http://vk.com/id160300242?z=tag160300242). The bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line were detonated at approximately 2:50 PM, local time.
The father of the two brothers from Makhachkala reckons that
his children were framed and that his son Jokhar was like an angel (http://lenta.ru/news/2013/04/19/anzor/). Friends of the brothers describe them as ordinary American guys.
In any case, the Boston police already have made a mistake in
their preliminary analysis of the brothers, stating that the suspects
may have received martial skills, including the ability to make
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Chechnya. They were not present
in Chechnya, either during the first war (1994-1995) or during the
second war in Chechnya that started in September 1999. The brothers
would not have been able to receive any type of fighting or military
experience because of their age. Their family emigrated to the US when
the eldest brother was only 16. Taking into account that before their
move to the US they had lived in Russia for two years and prior to that
they had resided for one year in Dagestan, it is hard to see their
connection to militants
operating in Chechnya or elsewhere in the North Caucasus.
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