Opinion

To Chech a terrorist

Tamerlan Tsarnaev (in black hat) took recent trips to Chechnya before bombing the Boston Marathon. Homeland Security warned of Chechens in a 2003 advisory obtained by writer Paul Sperry (inset). (
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In December 2003, the Department of Homeland Security warned that al Qaeda terrorists from Chechnya might try to enter the US to carry out attacks, a newly uncovered advisory says.

Back then, it seemed a bit of a stretch. All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Arab, including 15 Saudi nationals.

But the advisory explained that al Qaeda was trying to Westernize the appearance of its terrorist recruits to help sneak them through US security — that they “may not appear Arab.”

“Non-Arab al Qaeda operatives could find it easier to avoid unwanted scrutiny since they may not fit typical profiles,” according to the three-page, “For Official Use Only” report I’ve obtained.

The warnings have renewed urgency as authorities investigate any aid given to the Boston Marathon bombers. The Tsarnaev brothers were both ethnic Chechens, and the older mastermind, Tamerlan, had visited the region at least twice in the past few years, after emigrating from there in 2003.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev would appear to be just the kind of man Homeland Security was worried about.

“Chechens are non-Arab, and their physical appearance would be characterized by many US citizens as Mediterranean — a region the general public does not associate with Islamic terrorism,” the report says.

Homeland Security advised that residency in Chechnya or nearby countries like Kyrgyzstan, where Tsarnaev held a passport, were red-flag indicators for identifying terrorist suspects. “Al Qaeda operatives will likely have an Islamic or Chechen name,” it said.

In a January 2004 intelligence briefing regarding “Terrorist Hot Spots,” Homeland Security warned: “Many Chechen rebels are trained and supported by al Qaeda.”

If al Qaeda, or Chechen Islamists tied to al Qaeda, sponsored Tsarnaev, their strategy worked.

Tsarnaev traveled to Chechnya last year in a six-month journey that remains a mystery. Russian intelligence reportedly told the FBI and CIA that Tsarnaev met with a suspected Chechen terrorist during his visit.

Upon his return to America, Tsarnaev posted a link to a video by a Chechen terrorist named Abu Dujana on his YouTube site. Dujana commands the Islamic Caucasus Emirate, or Imarat Kavkaz, which is said to be part of the al Qaeda network. The US lists Caucasus Emirate as a terror group.

According to CNN, the Caucasus Emirate has posted Russian language translations of al Qaeda’s propaganda organ, Inspire, along with videos of the late al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Federal officials say Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar, also followed Awlaki and even downloaded instructions he helped write in an early edition of Inspire online magazine for making pressure-cooker bombs filled with ball bearings and nails — just like the ones they used to kill and maim Boston Marathon spectators.

Could the brothers have been able to successfully assemble and detonate the bombs without some kind of expert training, perhaps from battle-hardened Chechen fighters who run remote camps where explosives can be tested? Chechen terrorists in 2011 used a similar shrapnel-packed bomb to attack the Moscow airport.

Al Qaeda specializes in trying the unexpected. Beyond the warning about Chechen terrorists, officials have been told to watch out for female attackers.

The same 2003 Homeland Security Intelligence Report — titled “Al-Qaida Use of Non-Arab and Female Terror Operatives” — noted that al Qaeda-linked “Chechen rebels are increasingly using female suicide bombers to attack soft targets throughout Russia, such as public commercial centers, a rock concert, a theater and government leaders.”

The next year, in fact, two female Chechen terrorists blew themselves up on separate flights in Russia.

Beyond the Boston bombers, there have been other links between Chechnya and terrorist activities in the US. A number of Arab men living in Boston started training for jihad in Chechnya after Osama bin Laden in 1995 ordered the creation of a terrorist training camp there to prepare international terrorists to carry out attacks against America and the West.

A year before 9/11, for example, suspected al Qaeda terrorist Mohammad Kamal Elzahabi, who drove a cab in Boston, traveled to Chechnya to fight under the command of al Qaeda’s Chechen leader Ibn al-Khattab.

Elzahabi had several confederates in the Boston area, all cabbies, including one whom investigators tied to the 9/11 terrorists who hijacked the Boston flights. In 2007, Elzahabi was convicted of immigration fraud and deported.

From his hospital bed, surviving bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said the brothers were acting alone. But based on history, intelligence and old warnings, not to mention al Qaeda’s cunning, officials shouldn’t be so quick to believe him.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”