Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Tsarnaev brothers' parents had received welfare benefits during their stays in Mass. At the time of the bombing, Tamerlan, his wife Katherine, and daughter were off welfare, no longer meeting income eligibility requirements due to Katherine's working.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Family Received Welfare
"Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned," reports the Boston Herald.
"State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter…
Keep reading: Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Family Received Welfare | The Weekly Standard.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev got Mass. welfare benefits
Excerpt:
The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.
Relatives and news reports have indicated that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s descent into extremist Islam began around 2008 or 2009, when the ethnic Chechen met a convert identified only as “Misha,” began to become more devout, and sought out jihadist and conspiracy theorist websites, and the rabidly anti-Semitic propaganda tract, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
…
In early 2011, Tamerlan Tsarnaev first came to the attention of the FBI when the Russian FSB intelligence service contacted the U.S. agency to warn that he was suspected of being a dangerous radical and sought information.
“The request stated that it was based on information that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.” The FBI reported finding no “terrorism activity.”
In mid-2011, he was being monitored by the FSB, apparently prompting the FBI contact, ahead of his six-month trip home to Dagestan in 2012, where Time magazine reported he is believed to have attended a notorious radical mosque…
