Boston bombs: the Canadian boxer and the terror recruiter who 'led Tsarnaev
on path to jihad'
A Canadian boxer who was killed while fighting with jihadists in Russia has
emerged as a key contact who may have set the elder Boston bomber on his
path to violent extremism.
Boston bombs: the Canadian boxer and the terror recruiter who 'led Tsarnaev
on path to jihad'
Tsarnaev came on to the radar of Dagestan's anti-extremism unit when he was
seen 'more than once' with Nidal Photo: Getty Images
By Tom Parfitt, Moscow
11:00PM BST 28 Apr 2013
In what could be a breakthrough in the attempt to understand how Tamerlan
Tsarnaev - himself a skilled boxer - became radicalised and turned to
violence, Moscow's respected Novaya Gazeta newspaper revealed his links with
William Plotnikov, who was killed in a battle with security forces in the
troubled southern Russian republic of Dagestan last year.
During his visit to Dagestan last year, Tsarnaev also met on several
occasions a terrorist of mixed Dagestani and Palestinian parentage, who was
being closely watched by the Russian security services. That man, Makhmud
Mansur Nidal, had been under surveillance for six months as a suspected
recruiter for Islamist insurgents fighting Moscow's rule in the region.
Tsarnaev, 26, died during a shoot-out with US police in Boston on April 19,
and his brother Dkhokhar, 19, was hurt and eventually captured. The two
allegedly detonated bombs near the finishing line of the Boston marathon
four days earlier, in a devastating attack that killed three people and
wounded more than 260.
In the investigations that followed there have been few clues as to who
played the key roles in radicalising the older Tsarnaev brother, who is
thought to have taken the lead in instigating the Boston attacks.
The new claims have come from security officials in Makhachkala, the
Dagestan capital, where the brothers' parents moved from the US and where
Tsarnaev spent six months last year. According to the report in Novaya
Gazeta, Tsarnaev came on to the radar of Dagestan's anti-extremism unit when
he was seen "more than once" with Nidal, 19. A month later, Nidal was killed
after he blockaded himself in a house with weapons. He had been accused of
being part of a rebel group that organised a twin bomb attack in
Makhachkala, killing 13 people.
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Russian security operatives found Tsarnaev had been linked to William
Plotnikov, an ethnic Russian citizen of Canada, whom they had interrogated
in 2010 after he arrived in Dagestan, ostensibly to study Islam. Plotnikov
gave a list of people in Europe and the US with roots in Russia's North
Caucasus, with whom he had communicated via online social networking sites.
Among those whose names Plotnikov volunteered was Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Plotnikov was released, but by 2012 he had joined Dagestan's insurgents -
living in forest camps where he was known by fellow insurgents as "the
Canadian". He was shot dead, aged 23, in a battle with Russian security
forces in July last year that left six other militants dead.
It is unclear whether Tsarnaev and Plotnikov met through boxing circles or
only communicated online, but their life paths suggest such a meeting was
possible. Both were keen amateur boxers with roots in Russia who turned to
Islam after finding it hard to adapt in their adoptive countries. Tsarnaev
also visited his aunt in Toronto, where Plotnikov lived with his parents.
Novaya Gazeta's security source said the men communicated online via a site
associated with a non-governmental organisation called the World Assembly of
Muslim Youth. That could not be immediately verified. After the Russian
security service, the FSB, established his links with Plotnikov and Nidal,
he was watched closely.
"We pay special attention to foreign or ethnic Russian converts," said the
source. "They are extremely ideological and psychologically vulnerable;
they're more easily persuaded to do anything, even suicide bombing."
Two days after Plotnikov's death, Tsarnaev flew to Moscow on July 16 last
year, and the next day to the US. "It seems that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to
Dagestan with the aim of joining the insurgents," said the source. "It
didn't work out. First you need to contact an intermediary, then there is a
period of 'quarantine' - before they take someone, the insurgents check him
out over several months.
"After Nidal and Plotnikov were destroyed and he lost his contacts, Tsarnaev
got frightened and fled."
The information will intensify the debate over whether the FBI, Russia's
Federal Security Service or other agencies failed to exchange information on
the Tsarnaev brothers. Novaya Gazeta's source said the FSB sent a request to
the CIA last summer after Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Dagestan visit, asking the US
agency to track him, but got no response.
The FBI has said that it received a similar request in 2011 - possibly after
Plotnikov gave the Russian security services Tsarnaev's name - and
interviewed Tsarnaev several times, but found nothing "derogatory" and he
ceased to be a priority.
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