US officials: Russia withheld key intel on Tsarnaev

Russia did not give the US crucial information regarding deceased bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the Boston Marathon attacks occurred, US officials briefed on the investigation were quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying.

According to the report, text messages allegedly indicating that Tsarnaev expressed an interest in joining militant groups in the Caucasus were not brought to the attention of US authorities. The officials said they learned of the text messages sent between Tsarnaev’s mother and a Russian relative about a week after the tragic attacks.

One US official said that one of the text messages discussed jihad in a general sense, without mentioning specific terrorism plans.

The information “would have allowed the bureau to open an investigation where you could track [Tsarnaev’s] communications,” said House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, as quoted in the WSJ. “To me, that’s where the ball really got dropped.”

Russia maintains that it warned the CIA and then the FBI about Tsarnaev’s suspected radicalization in 2011, but when the US asked for more information, on three separate occasions according to officials, Russia did not provide any.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that in 2011, “There couldn’t have been detailed information on him because he didn’t live on Russian territory.”

Officials in Dagestan said they tracked Tsarnaev during a six-month trip there in 2012 and uncovered a meeting with a known militant, information the US said it never received.

Such precise information could have led to a deeper examination of Tsarnaev, some officials said.

Tsarnaev died in a police shootout four days after the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15. His brother and suspected accomplice Dzhokar Tsarnaev remains in custody in a prison hospital facility.