Tamerlan Tsarnaev's YouTube account provides clues about his radicalization
By Luke Harding, The Guardian
Monday, April 22, 2013 20:04 EDT
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.
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