Thursday, April 25, 2013

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's YouTube account provides clues about his reislamization

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's YouTube account provides clues about his radicalization

By Luke Harding, The Guardian

Monday, April 22, 2013 20:04 EDT

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/22/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-youtube-account-provides-clues-about-his-radicalization/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

 

A YouTube account apparently belonging to Tamerlan Tsarnaev gives

tantalising hints of his radicalisation before the Boston bombings, and

includes a speech by a Russian militant cradling a gun, a bizarre attack on

Harry Potter, and songs by a popular Russian rapper.

 

Tsarnaev created a YouTube channel in August 2012, shortly after returning

to the US from Moscow. He spent six months in Russia last year between

January and July, visiting his parents in Makhachkala, the capital of the

Muslim republic of Dagestan. Tsarnaev also visited neighbouring Chechnya.

 

It is unclear if Tsarnaev met militant rebel groups during his trip. They

have vehemently denied any link. His aunt said Tsarnaev's deepening interest

in radical Islam pre-dated his Russia visit, with the FBI interviewing

Tsarnaev inconclusively in 2011 after a tip-off from Russian authorities. By

the time he arrived in Dagestan, he had grown a beard, prayed five times a

day and had given up drinking, she said.

 

Whatever his links with Dagestani rebels, five months ago Tsarnaev posted

two revealing videos. They feature a little-known jihadist leader, Abu

Dujana, making a rambling speech to "Muslim youth". Abu Dujana wears

military fatigues and holds a Kalashnikov. He speaks in Russian. Two other

armed rebels - their faces hidden by scarves and balaclavas - sit next to

him, against a black Islamist flag.

 

Abu Dujana appears to be from Imarat Kavkaz, a jihadist outfit allied to the

main anti-Kremlin leader in the North Caucasus, Doku Umarov. His tiny group

named itself after Rabini Kallikov, a local militant killed by Russian

security forces in 2005 or 2006. In December, months before the Boston

attacks, Russian police in turn killed Abu Dujana during a raid on his

Makhachkala flat.

 

Cerwyn Moore, an expert on the insurgency in the North Caucasus at

Birmingham University, said of Tsarnaev's video post: "He's obviously aware

of some of the clandestine groups operating in Dagestan. This is a small

sub-group. Abu Dujana is not a big player. Federal forces have been

successful recently at killing all the top leaders." Chechen rebel groups

pioneered the use of video messages from the late 1990s, well before

al-Qaida, he added.

 

Tsarnaev listed the two videos under the category "terrorism". Later he - or

someone else - deleted them. Other videos on his YouTube account star

impressionable young men talking, in Russian, about their conversion to

Islam: spiritual journeys of transformation that seem to echo Tsarnaev's

own. One, Mikhail, is from Pyatigorsk, in the North Caucasus; another shares

his experiences from a Yekaterinburg mosque.

 

There are also songs by Timur Mutsurayev, a religious Chechen singer whose

ballads have been classified by Russian courts as "extremist". (One is

titled: "Life is devoted to jihad.") Two videos feature Vasya Oblomov, a

young rapper with a huge mainstream following. Oblomov sang in December at

an anti-Putin rally in Moscow. His drole rhyming lyrics satirise the police,

officials, and Russia's most ubiquitous problem: corruption. He condemned

the Boston bombings after his videos surfaced as Tsarnaev favourites.

 

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia's security services, said Tamerlan was

already radicalised before his 2012 trip to Russia. "It looks like he was

inspired via the internet and then maybe in Dagestan. So far there is no

evidence he got in touch with anyone linked to terrorist activities in

Dagestan. I'm in a mood to trust the militants' statements they [had]

nothing to do with the attack: the insurgency in the North Caucasus has

never attacked Americans. They are not legitimate targets."

 

The most curious video on Tsarnaev's playlist warns good Muslims not to

allow their kids to watch Harry Potter. In what at first appears to be a

Borat-like spoof, Sheikh Feiz Muhammad - a radical, bearded cleric based in

Australia - denounces JK Rowling works. He declares: "This film glorifies

paganism and evil . It teaches your children the drinking of unicorn blood

and magic."

 

Tsarnaev posted his last video two months ago. He subscribed to a UK-based

channel called Allah is the One. Britain has also experience of Muslims

being radicalised via the internet. The first case to come to light was

Roshonara Choudhry, a gifted student, who dropped out from university after

watching material from an extremist preacher on YouTube.

 

Choudhry went on to try and assassinate a British MP, Steven Timms, as

punishment for supporting the Iraq war.

 

It emerged at her trial that Choudhry was radicalised after watching

internet sermons given by Anwar al-Awlaki , the Islamist cleric who was

based in Yemen, and whom the US eventually killed.

 

Material from al-Awlaki remains on YouTube. His extremist message continues

to be spread from beyond the grave through the English-language terror

manual he created, Inspire magazine, which is still disseminated via

internet forums. The material was linked to three would-be suicide bombers

convicted in February of plotting to carry out attacks in the UK which would

have been more deadly than the 7/7 bombings in 2005. Police now monitor

anyone trying to access Inspire on the internet.

 

What remains unanswered is why Tsarnaev's 2012 YouTube playlist did not ring

alarm bells for the FBI. One clip shows young Muslim warriors parading with

Kalashnikovs held about their heads, to booming martial music. The clues

were all there.

 

==========================================

(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this

message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to

these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed

within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with

"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The

Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain

permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials

if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria

for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies

as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four

criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is

determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not

substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use

copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you

must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

 

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS

PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

 

 

 

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment