Politico Says Bombers' Motives 'Far From Obvious'

For Politico, the motivation for the bombers who murdered innocent civilians at the Boston Marathon simply isn’t very clear. 

Politico asks rhetorically, “Chechens have been locked for nearly two decades in a bitter, violent conflict against the Russian government. But why would two Chechen refugees harbor such anger toward the United States that they’d want to carry out a terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon?”

In an attempt to muddy the waters, Politico claims we just don’t know: “The answer is far from obvious, since the U.S. and Russia are often at odds on a wide variety of issues and the American officials regularly denounce the Russian Federation for engaging in human rights abuses, including in Chechnya.”

In the very article where the Politico alleges the answer is far from obvious, there are statements like these:

• “…experts say some parts of the Chechen resistance have become radicalized during the long-running conflict, with elements at the fringe taking their conflict global and even linking up with Al Qaeda.”

• Politico quotes Lorenzo Vidino, from the Switzerland-based Center for Security Studies: 

  Starting in the 1990s, some Chechens began to embrace a militant interpretation of Islam and have fallen into the umbrella of a sort of global jihad, despite the fact that the conflict in their region was still going on… Once you embrace that ideology, if you buy into the global jihad mindset, one battlefield equals the other… An attack on Boston is good as an attack on Pakistan, which is as good as an attack on Moscow… We had a Chechen who lived in Belgium live there for a couple of years, then go to Denmark and try to carry out an attack. (emphasis added)

• Politico adds: “But as bin Laden’s group has lost the steam it had a decade ago, other terror groups with ties to that core have been on the rise, including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia’s Al Shabaab and Chechnya’s Islamic Caucasus Emirate.

If Politico wants an answer to the bombers’ motivation, it shouldn’t be hard to find.