TerrorismLawmakers want to learn more about the 2011 FBI investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Published 22 April 2013

Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Peter King (R-New York), the former chairman of the committee, sent a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking answers about the Tamerlan Tsarnaev investigation by the FBI.In 2011, Russian security authorities requested that the FBI question Tsarnaev on suspicion that he was affiliated with Islamic Chechen insurgents, but after interviewing Tsarnaev and doing a background check, the FBI concluded there was not enough to justify continuing tracking of cTamerlan.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, deceased older sibing of the Boston bombers // Source: hanyu.com

Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that he believes one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, received training during an extended trip to Chechnya last year.

McCaul also wondered why the FBI did not take a more serious look at Tsarnaev when agents investigated him before he went to Russia.

“I personally believe this man received training when he was over there and he radicalized from 2010 to the present,” McCaul said on State of the Union.

According to a U.S. official, in 2011 Russian security authorities requested the FBI to question Tsarnaev.

Following the questioning, Tsarnaev traveled to Russia and spent the next six months there, returning to the United Staes in the summer of 2012. When he returned, Tsarnaev created a YouTube channel which included links to videos, two of which were tagged “Terrorists.”

“If he was on the radar and they let him go — he’s on the Russians’ radar — why wasn’t a flag put on him, some sort of customs flag? I’ve done this before. You put a customs flag up on the individual coming in and out. And I’d like to know what intelligence of Russia has on him as well. I would suspect that they may have monitored him when he was in Russia,” McCaul told CNN’s chief political correspondent Candy Crowley.

A group of North Caucasus rebels in Dagestan, where Tsarnaev’s father currently resides, has denied any ties to the attack, according to a statement on a Web site used by the rebels, who call themselves Mujahideen of the Caucasus Emirate Province of Dagestan.

McCaul said the explosives used in the bombing are believed to be weapons similar to ones used by al Qaeda.

“I think the larger question right now — If I’m a U.S. attorney is how is —  is there more to this cell? Is it just these two or should I cast a wider net to see if anyone else is out there that may be tied to the cell in the United States?”

McCaul and Representative Peter King (R-New York), the former chairman of the committee, drafted a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking answers about the Tamerlan investigation, according to a GOP congressional source. The unnamed source said that McCaul and King do not see the move as politically motivated, but as part of their responsibility.