Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scrawled an angry message when he thought he was going to die in a police shootout — justifying his attack and praising his terrorist brother.
His victims were “collateral damage” who suffered in revenge for US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, sources told CBS News and CNN.
Tsarnaev used a pen to write the message on an interior wall of the boat where he cowered in hiding after a bloody firefight with Boston-area cops.
The gist of his note was: “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.”
In addition, Tsarnaev, 19, did not mourn his brother, Tamerlan, 26 — who had just died — instead calling him “a martyr” whom he believed he was about to join.
Tamerlan is thought to have masterminded the April 15 double bombing.
Dzhokhar was found in the boat in a Watertown, Mass., yard on April 19 after a daylong manhunt and lockdown of much of the Boston area.
He is being held in a prison hospital near Boston and faces charges that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted.
The scrawled note fits in with what Dzhokhar has reportedly told investigators since his capture, while he recovers from gunshots to the head, neck, arms and legs.
The reports of his note gave no indication that he revealed the involvement of anyone else in the marathon attack that killed three people and wounded more than 250 others.
The contents of the note were disclosed yesterday as FBI Director Robert Mueller defended his handling of a Russian warning about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Mueller told a Senate subcommittee that the FBI concluded Tamerlan posed no serious threat following a March 2011 inquiry. But he said the FBI did not fully share with Boston officials the electronic notifications that Tamerlan left the United States in January 2012 andhad left the United States to spend six months in Russia in 2012.