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Why Did This Party Loving Pothead Become A Terrorist? Idolizing His Older Brother?
by Monica Davis
What turns a young, party loving pothead into a blood thirsty terrorist? That’s what friends and acquaintences of young Dzhokhar Tsarnaev want to know. Many don’t find it hard to link his older brother, Tamerlan to violent events. After all, Tamerlan allegedly beat on his girlfriend and even his own cousin says Tamerlan was up to no good and was not a nice man.
To those who knew them, the apparent transformation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19 — ethnic Chechens, born in the former Soviet territory now known as Kyrgyzstan and transplanted to a working-class Inman Square neighborhood — seemed almost inconceivable.
But as friends and neighbors pieced together recollections of the terrorism suspects and their family, a picture emerged of an older brother who seemed to grow increasingly religious and radical — and who may have drawn his more easygoing younger brother into a secret plot of violence and hatred.
“I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good,” Zaur Tsarnaev, who identified himself as a 26-year-old cousin, said in a phone interview from Makhachkala, Russia, where the brothers briefly lived. “[Tamerlan] was always getting in trouble. He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend. . . . He was not a nice man.” MOREHERE
Was this a case of an older brother leading a younger one astray? Reports say Tamerlan dropped out of school, had no visible means of support and beat up his girlfriend in 2009. He was troubled, according to acquaintences, and appeared to be the exact opposite of his pot loving, “angelic” younger brother. People are pointing to a few Tweets that Tamerlan reportedly sent. The tweet quoted a Koran verse–a verse allegedly used often by radical Islamic clerics and propagandists. (See above video)
According to news sources, Tamerlan was a fan of a radical cleric–who, like his young fan, was also a boxer. Feiz Mohammad, Sunni Salafism follower, called for Muslim youth to become holy warriors and attracted global attention with a 2007 call for the beheading of a Dutch politician who compared radical Islam to Nazism.
The YouTube account belonging to “Tamerlan Tsarnaev” has held up under scrutinity, andEli Lake has pored through the dead suspect’s favorites and likes to create a picture of his influences. There are plenty of links to sermons from Feiz Mohammad, “a former boxer of Lebanese descent who now preaches an extreme version of Sunni Islam known as Salafism,” and who, like Tamerlan, was a boxer:
In 2007 Mohammed came under fire for a series of messages that called on young Muslims to become holy warriors. Three years later, the Dutch press reported that Mohammad had called for the beheading of Gert Wilders, a Dutch politician who has compared radical Islam to Nazi ideology. MOREHERE
