Submitted by S. Rizvi.
It appears the Tsarnaev brothers were self-motivated. But their Salafist extremism was itself one outgrowth of the brutal Chechen wars of independence against Russia
When a local newspaper here in Montana called for my views on a 19-year-old wrestler named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with the confusing pedigree of being a Chechen from Dagestan who was reportedly born in Kyrgyzstan but mostly grew up in the United States, and what his motivations for the Boston Marathonterror attack may have been, I tried to use my background as the resident “Chechenologist” to help out.
About the Author
Thomas Goltz teaches courses on the Middle East and the Caucasus region at Montana State University. He is also the…
Answering the second part of the question—“Why?”—was easy: I did not know Tsarnaev’s motivations. But if he is guilty of the bombings—and I have little doubt at this point that he is—there must be a link to the deeply troubled history of Chechnya, and to the generations of anger, despair and trauma experienced by his people.
To start: Chechens are not Russians but a distinct national and lingual group, known as the Nakhs or Vainakhs, who are indigenous to the north slope of the Caucasus mountain range, where they have lived since before recorded history. Rather like Native American peoples, whose sad history is a strange and cruel mirror of the Chechens’ experience at the hands of Russian imperialism, the people of Chechnya do not call themselves “Chechens.” In their own language—as distinct from Russian as Navajo is from English—they are the Noxchi, which translates more or less as “the People.”
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http://www.thenation.com/article/174026/there-chechen-connection-boston-bombings