Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s radical online rants and an extended trip to Russia should have kept him on the FBI’s radar, Rep. Peter King (R-LI) said yesterday.
King, former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, noted that the FBI spoke to Tsarnaev in 2011 at the behest of a foreign government and that the bureau clearly had information on him.
“This is an interviewed person and we need to know why [the FBI] didn’t take action,” King told The Post.
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The Chechen immigrant was flagged by a Russian intelligence agency three years ago because he was visiting radical Muslim Web sites, his mother told Russia Today.
In 2011, Russian intelligence personnel informed their US counterparts that Tsarnaev was becoming a radicalized Muslim, reports say.
But although FBI agents questioned Tsarnaev and his family, the bureau couldn’t pin him to any known terror plots.
Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a wild shootout with police early Friday, spent six months in Russia last year and used social media to support his radical Islamic sophistry, said King.
“That should have sent off alarm bells,” he said.
King said he’ll be firing off a letter tomorrow to US Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller “for a full, detailed explanation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said the two superpowers will team up on the matter. “I think that there will be contacts between our intelligence services,” he said.