Second suspect eludes dragnet as Boston remains locked down

passenger’s seat, was shooting at the chasing police cars and throwing pipe bombs out of the car’s window. As police cars were about the surround the escaping SUV, the suspects stopped the car and Tamerlan got out, shooting as he was walking toward to squad cars. He was hit with more than a dozen bullets in his torso, and an explosive suicide belt he was wearing exploded. As he fell to the pavement, his younger brother exploited the momentary lull in shooting to speed away, running over the body of his dead brother in the process.

Several police officers were injured during the pursuit and shootout, one of them critically.

The Chechen connection
Chechen never felt comfortable being ruled by Russia and, later, the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin was so suspicious of their loyalty during the Second World War, that he ordered Chechnya emptied of people and its population transferred to temporary camps in Siberia for the duration of the war. At the end of the Second World War, the population was allowed to go back home.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in December 1991 into fifteen different republics, the Chechen thought their time of independence had finally come, but Russia had other ideas. In 1994, after two years of futile negotiations, separatists in Chechnya began an armed insurgency against the Russian military in the territory, to which the Russian military responded with no-holds-barred brutality.

It was not long before the nationalist-separatist campaign was transformed into an Islamic insurgency, drawing volunteers from across the Muslim world. The Jihadi movement – this was still two or three years before al Qaeda was formed – was emboldened by its victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, a victory which led to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.

The Jihadi movement appeared to believe that they could defeat the Russian army in Chechnya the same way the defeated the Red Army in Afghanistan.

Russia was more determined fighting in Chechnya than it was fighting in Afghanistan, and two rounds of brutal war, in 1995-96 and 1999-2000, destroyed much of Chechnya’s infrastructure, killed more than 200,000 civilians, and allowed Russia to continue to rule the area.

The Chechen Islamists responded by escalating they campaign of terror against Russia. Militants from Chechnya and neighboring provinces have launched a series of spectacular terror attacks in Russia, including a 2002 hostage-taking raid in Moscow’s theater in which 129 hostages died, a 2004 hostage-taking in a school in Beslan which resulted in the killing of 330 people, most of them young children, and several other bombings in Moscow and other cities.