PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Russia Program at GW (IERES)

    View
  • The Evolving Concerns of Russians after the Invasion | New Voices on Eurasia with Sasha de Vogel (March 9)

    View
  • PONARS Eurasia Spring Policy Conference (March 3)

    View
  • Ukrainathon 2023 (Feb. 24-25)

    View
  • How Putin has shrugged off unprecedented economic sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine – for now

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Islamic Terrorism Comes to Boston

  • April 22, 2013
  • Mark Kramer

(University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China) The two bombings on 15 April at the finish line of the Boston Marathon were not the first time that Boston has known Islamic terrorists on its soil.  At least five of the September 2001 al Qaeda terrorists had ties to the Boston area (including two who had worked as taxi drivers in Boston), and the two planes that flew into the World Trade Center towers on 11 September took off from Boston’s Logan Airport.

Nonetheless, the two deadly bombings on 15 April came as a shock to Boston residents (including me — I was born in Boston and have lived in the Boston area most of my life), in part because of the choice of the marathon as a target and in part because the bombs were laced with nails and ball bearings, which were clearly meant to maim and mutilate spectators.  At least 20 of the 170 people who were seriously injured had one or both legs blown off, and other spectators had their eyes punctured.

The marathon itself made a convenient “soft target” for a terrorist attack, but it is not yet known why it was chosen.  Although bomb-sniffing dogs have been used in the finish line area of the marathon since 1996 (a year after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City), the marathon is inherently vulnerable to a determined attacker.

The two Tsarnaev brothers who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings had lived in the Boston area for more than a decade.  The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with the police, was born in Kyrgyzstan in the late Soviet era, and the younger brother, Dzhokhar, who was captured Friday evening and is now hospitalized under heavy guard, was born in Kyrgyzstan in July 1993.  The family moved for a while to Dagestan, which borders on Chechnya, and in 2001 they came to the United States.

Several years ago, Tamerlan began to fall under the spell of Islamic radicalism, and he veered increasingly in that direction over the past few years.  In early 2011 the Russian government contacted the U.S. government and warned that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was developing ties with proponents of “radical Islam” in Russia.  The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undertook a background search but did not find evidence that Tsarnaev had links to terrorist elements.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev evidently traveled to Russia several times in recent years, and in 2012, a year after the Russian government had expressed concern to the U.S. government that Tsarnaev had developed ties with extremists, the Russian authorities permitted him to visit Russia for at least six months, including a prolonged stay in Dagestan, the most volatile Islamic area in Russia.  Apparently, Tsarnaev was also allowed to visit Chechnya, which was embroiled in two highly destructive insurgencies against Russia in 1994-1996 and 1999-2007.  The odd nature of this visit, coming so soon after a stark warning, raises several obvious questions.  Why did the Russian authorities permit him to come?  (As a Russian citizen, he is legally entitled to come to Russia, but the Russian government is legally entitled to bar anyone, even a citizen, who poses a threat of “extremism.”)  Was the Russian government setting him up?  How closely did the Russian authorities monitor his activities in Russia?

This also leads to the question of whether others were involved in the Boston bombing plot.  Even though the pressure-cooker bombs used on 15 April are not all that difficult to build, lacing them with nails and ball bearings and designing the detonators for remote control are not normally tasks a novice would undertake.  In the North Caucasus (and elsewhere), terrorist groups usually have at least one explosives specialist who focuses on little other than building bombs designed for specific purposes.  Building a bomb that is intended to maim and mutilate a large number of people is something a specialist could handle easily, but it would be harder for someone with no training.  Perhaps Tamerlan Tsarnaev received the necessary training when he was in Russia last year, but we need the Russian authorities to reveal a lot more about what he was doing there.

The brothers were of Chechen ethnic origin, but they had almost no firsthand knowledge of Chechnya.  Tamerlan lived there very briefly in the early 1990s, and Dzhokhar had never lived there.  Dagestan borders on Chechnya, but during the 1990s Dagestan, unlike Chechnya, was peaceful and ethnically harmonious.   The Boston bombings were the first time that Chechens of any sort have ever been implicated in a terrorist plot in North America.  Indeed, Chechen terrorists have very rarely operated outside the Russian Federation.  A few attacks/have taken place in Turkey over the past 12 years (most recently in 2011), and one plot was broken up in France a decade ago and another in Belgium a bit later, but those were the only exceptions.  The vast majority of Chechen terrorism takes place in Russia, especially the North Caucasus.

Because the once-strong drive for Chechen independence was crushed years ago, the brothers’ motivation seems to have been connected with Islamic extremism, rather than any specific devotion to Chechnya.  But perhaps “long-distance nationalism” (as Benedict Anderson called it) also instilled in them a devotion to a homeland they never really knew.  Islamic radicalism was the dominant factor in the attacks, but these long-time Bostonians may also have been guided by a loyalty to an “imagined community” that never really existed.

______________

Mark Kramer is Director of Cold War Studies at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. This comment is also available on the website of the Division International Studies at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China.

Related Topics
  • Boston
  • Chechnya
  • Kramer
  • Russia
  • Terrorism
Previous Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

References on Chechnya, the Caucasus, and Related Violence

  • April 19, 2013
  • Joshua Tucker
View
Next Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

The New Insurgents of Our Era

  • April 22, 2013
  • Sufian Zhemukhov
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

  • Irina Busygina
  • February 8, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ukraine’s Asymmetric Responses to the Russian Invasion

  • Nurlan Aliyev
  • July 28, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.