The Chechen Connection

Goltz examines the troubled history of Chechnya to determine Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's motivations for the Boston Marathon terror attack. Chechens aren't Russians but a distinct national and lingual group, known as the Nakhs or Vainakhs, who are indigenous to the north slope of the Caucasus mountain range, where they have lived since before recorded history. During the Murid wars of the 19th century, the Chechens were the backbone of Muslim tribal resistance to czarist expansion, earning their reputation as fearless Sufi-inspired warriors. In the gulags and collective farms of Central Asian exile, the Chechens honed their reputation for toughness. Some remain in Kyrgyzstan to this day, having chosen not to return to their homeland after their rehabilitation by Nikita Khrushchev in 1957. Those who did return to Chechnya did so with a collective bad attitude as well as a reputation for ruthlessness and organized crime.