This a portion of a biography written on the Tsarnaeva brothers by the Boston Globe that you should read in full. It gives a picture of how, mostly Tamerlan, began to embrace Islam more in the last couple of years than in the past and how some of those around him noticed it:
BOSTON GLOBE – In recent years, as discord rippled through their family, both brothers displayed signs of growing extremism.
Maret Tsarnaeva told reporters at a press conference on Friday in Toronto that her nephew Tamerlan recently went from praying no more than once a day to praying five times a day. A neighbor and family friend in Cambridge said Tamerlan became a devout Muslim within the past few years.
“He started talking about religion,” said the family friend, who asked not to be identified. “He grew a long beard.”
The friend said Tamerlan urged him to be more observant, asking, “Why don’t you become a better Muslim? Why don’t you pray, why don’t you do your Islamic duties?”
When the friend joked about the beard, he said, Tamerlan became upset, asking “Why are you making fun of my religion?”
A next-door neighbor on Norfolk Street in Cambridge said he too noticed a change in Tamerlan’s appearance about a year ago when he began wearing long white linen garments. The neighbor, who asked not to be identified, characterized it as a striking change for the once hip-looking, urban young man, but said it only lasted a month.
Online, it appears, Tamerlan toyed with extremism. A YouTube account created in Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name in August 2012 includes in one playlist a video dedicated to the prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan, which is apparently embraced by Islamic extremists.
In another video, featured on a playlist entitled “terrorists,” a speaker holds an assault rifle and wears camouflage fatigues while flanked by armed men wearing masks.
“There will always be a group of people who will stick to the truth, fight for that truth,” the speaker says in Russian with an accent common to the Caucasus region that includes Chechnya. “And those who won’t support them will not win.”
The Globe could not confirm that the user was the same person as the bombing suspect who was killed in a shoot-out.
At the end of 2011, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev contacted Brian Glyn Williams, a history professor at UMass Dartmouth who teaches a course on the history of Chechnya, expressing an interest in learning more about Chechen history.
“He wanted to rediscover his roots and his identity,’’ said Williams.
Williams called Chechnya “probably the most dangerous heart of darkness in the world.’’ The Russians, he said, have fought the Chechens since the 1700s and killed about 200,000 people — one fifth of Chechnya’s population — from 1999 to 2001.
But Christopher Swift, who teaches national security studies at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and has studied the war in Chechnya for nearly 15 years, said it is unlikely that the Tsarnaev brothers were formally trained by Chechen Islamist militants, whose terrorist activities have always been focused on Russia.
“If there is any connection between these kids and the insurgency there, it will be the first time they have struck a target outside of Russia,” Swift said in an interview.
The brothers’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, said she never heard her sons talk about terrorism. She was quoted by CNN saying that one son got involved in religion about five years ago, but “he never told me he would be on the side of jihad,” she said. “How could this happen?”
Tamerlan’s turn to Islam came as the family seemed to be disintegrating, according to neighbors and court records.
A next-door neighbor on Norfolk Street, who declined to provide his name, said he would constantly hear yelling and police would often show up at the family’s apartment. Another neighbor also described “screaming and arguments.”
The parents divorced, and spent extended periods of time back in Russia. The suspects’ mother, Zubeidat, was arrested in June 2012 in Natick and charged with shoplifting after a Lord & Taylor employee accused her of cutting the sensor tags out of several dresses, valued at $1,952, and hiding them in her shopping bag. The police report described her as unemployed and divorced.
Yet the older brother had the beginnings of his own family. He was married to Katherine Russell, who grew up in North Kingstown, R.I. Russell began wearing Islamic clothing shortly after she started at Suffolk University, one neighbor said. Russell and Tsarnaev also had a child in the past few years, and the three of them were seen on and off at Russell’s parents’ home in Rhode Island. Her mother, Judith, Friday read a prepared statement from the home saying she was “sickened” by the knowledge of what Tsarnaev did.
“Our daughter has lost her husband today, the father of her child. We cannot begin to comprehend how this horrible tragedy occurred,” said the mother. “In the aftermath of the Patriots Day horror we know that we never really knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev.”
The family declined to answer questions when a Globe reporter came to the door.
Dzhokhar, who reportedly did well in high school, was failing many of his college classes, according to a university transcript reviewed by The New York Times. The transcript shows him receiving seven failing grades over two semesters in 2012 and 2013. Several UMass students recalled seeing him smoking or playing laptop video games in the common area of his hall.
About two years ago, the father, Anzor, returned to Dagestan and his former wife also returned to Russia sometime later, according to CNN, leaving the sons on their own. The parents went back and forth to the United States numerous times to visit their children, their aunt said, and another relative said the older brother, Tamerlan, also spent a lengthy period in Russia last year.
Cousin Zaur Tsarnaev said he most recently expressed his concerns about Tamerlan — the alleged bomber pictured in a dark hat in FBI videos released Thursday — to Dzhokhar when the younger brother visited last summer. He added that Dzhokhar went to mosque sometimes but he was “never an extremist.”
“Dzhokhar is a sweet boy, innocent. He was always smiling, friendly and happy,” Zaur Tsarnaev said. “I don’t know how he is involved in this.”
Tamerlan, by contrast, had seen his share of troubles.
Gym owner Allan said that Tamerlan had once introduced him to an American, Brendan Mess, whom Tamerlan described as his best friend.
Two years ago, Mess and two other men were brutally killed in a Waltham apartment where they were found by police with their throats slit and their bodies covered with marijuana. The murders remain unsolved.
Tsarnaev hadn’t been to Allan’s Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center in years, instead going to another nearby boxing gym.
Until this month.
Allan, who is currently traveling in Thailand, said he got an e-mail within the past week saying Tsarnaev showed up at the gym acting rude and disrespectful, using other people’s equipment, walking on the mats with his shoes.
“It was a clear indication that something was up,” Allan said. “He was becoming a complete [expletive].
In the photo essay about Tamerlan’s boxing, called “Will Box for Passport,” Tamerlan stops to answer a phone call while walking from his Mercedes to the martial arts center. He has a long wool scarf wrapped fashionably around his neck and gleaming white leather slip-on shoes and is carrying an Oceanfly dufflebag.
He said in the essay that he quit smoking and drinking because “God said no alcohol.” He worried that “there are no values anymore . . . people can’t control themselves.”