Search for Boston Bombers

April 22, 2013

Police patrol through a neighborhood in Watertown, Mass., while searching for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

From VOA Learning English, this is IN THE NEWS.

American law enforcement officials this week looked for suspects in the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed when two bombs exploded near the finish line on Monday. More than 170 others were injured.

On Thursday, federal investigators released a video tape and pictures taken around the time of the Boston bombings. The images showed two young men carrying backpacks. Officials believe the bombs were transported in the bags.

On Friday, police identified the suspects as brothers and ethnic Chechens. The two were born in Kyrgyzstan and lived for several years in Dagestan before coming to the United States as refugees.

The uncle of the brothers spoke to reporters from his home in the state of Maryland. He says the brothers’ family is Muslim. He also confirmed their ethnic identity.

The issue of identity is complex.

Aslan Doukaev directs the North Caucasus Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He spoke to us from the Czech Republic.

“Yes, I am familiar--I’m myself of Chechen origin and I know the social structure and I think I can speak about that. But if we’re going to talk about these two young persons, they had, they lived all their lives outside of Chechnya so it’s probably, it is probably not, would be not correct on my part to speak about them as part of this Chechnya, Chechen society or Chechen environment.