A forthcoming federal inspector general’s review of the Boston bombing case reveals that Russian authorities didn’t share all the information they had about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s radicalism when they alerted the FBI to his activities in 2011, the New York Times reports this morning:
Russian officials had told the F.B.I. in 2011 that the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, “was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer” and that Mr. Tsarnaev “had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”
But after an initial investigation by the F.B.I., the Russians declined several requests for additional information about Mr. Tsarnaev, according to the report, a review of how intelligence and law enforcement agencies could have thwarted the bombing.
It was only after the bombings that Russia shared more intel on Tsarnaev, the Times article says, mentioning one specific detail: “information from a telephone conversation the Russian authorities had intercepted between Mr. Tsarnaev and his mother in which they discussed Islamic jihad.” Members of Congress are scheduled to be briefed on the report today, and the paper says more details from its findings will be made public before next Tuesday, the first anniversary of the bombing.
