Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev: Surviving suspect in Boston bombing was born in Dagestan near Chechnya

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev has been identified as the surviving suspect in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings.

Photographs of 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, currently the subject of a massive manhunt, appear to match the man who became known as Suspect 2 or “the suspect in the white hat”.

According to his account on the Russian social networking site VKontakte, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev graduated from Boston’s Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in 2011, and attended School No 1 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, from 1999 to 2001.

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev appears to have been a good student, having apparently received a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge in 2011 to pursue college. He was also named a wrestling all-star at his high school the same year.

On his VKontakte page, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev says he considers “career and money” most important in life. As his world view, he wrote: “Islam”.

The page says Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev speaks English, Russian and Chechen, and belongs to a number of groups devoted to Chechnya. Dagestan, a republic neighboring Chechnya, maintains a small Chechen minority.

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev was born on 22 July 1993, just before a fierce battle for independence broke out in the Republic of Chechnya, which attempted to secede from Russia in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Over time, the independence movement grew increasingly Islamist in character. Largely quashed by Moscow, a low-level insurgency persists in Chechnya and has leaked into neighboring Dagestan.

On VKontakte, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev follows several pages devoted to Islam. He also lists one of his favorite songs as Shaggy’s Hey Sexy Lady.

His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, has been identified as Suspect 1 and died overnight following a firefight with police.

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