With the manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon underway, historian Charles King urges caution against tying the brothers into any Chechen movement or history. Instead, it seems we should see them as homegrown American terrorists.
“The killing of one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings and the ongoing hunt for another have focused attention on the motivations and background of the suspects themselves. The revelation that the brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are of ethnic Chechen origin has led commentators to look to culture and history for clues about the sources of this week’s attack.”