News sources are reporting that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings are brothers hailing from a Russian region close to the contested region of Chechnya.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, known also as the "white hat," is still on the run after his brother, Tamerlan, 26, was killed in a police shootout in the early hours of Friday morning.
Tsarnaev is likely of Chechen descent, according to information on his Russian social media profile VK.
On his profile, he lists his priorities as "money" and "career" and his religion as Islam.
Details remain unclear but initial reports paint a picture of a family that moved frequently around Central Asia and the Caucus region of Russia.
RT reported that Dzhokhar was born in Kyrgyzstan and has two sisters Bella and Amina, though conflicting reports say he was born in Dagestan.
The family moved to the Russian region of Dagestan in 2001 where Dzhokhar attended school – a region known for ethnic strife and a low-intensity Islamic insurgency.
RT reported that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar's older brother, was born in Chechnya but fled to Kazakhstan with his family in the 1990s – possibly before Dzhokhar was born.
He then made it to the US as a refugee along with his brother sometime around 2001, according to their uncle.
The Wall Street Journal reported that both, in fact, arrived at different times, with one arriving in 2002 with the family and another in 2004.
Foreign Policy wrote that Tamerlan had trouble integrating in the US, writing on a social media site "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."
Tamerlan was apparently a boxer and had competed in the National Golden Gloves championship in Utah in 2009.
A photographer even did a photo essay on Tamerlan who wanted to compete for the US Olympic team.
In it he describes himself as "very religious."
He had enrolled in Bunker Hill Community College for engineering and had a girlfriend who converted to Islam for him.
He was arrested for domestic abuse in 2009 and began to take more of an interest in religion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The younger brother, Dzhokhar, appears to have attended Cambridge Ringe & Latin School after arriving in the US.
Tsarnaev's name appears on a 2011 list of City of Cambridge scholarship recipients, a $2,500 award.
The two brothers apparently lived together, according to their uncle who spoke to the AP.
The uncle told the AP that the older brother Tamerlan was a "loser."
“He deserved his. He absolutely deserved his,” the uncle said. “They do not deserve to live on this earth.”
In a later press conference, he said the boys had put a shame on their family and on the Chechen people.
He said the boys had not been back to Chechnya but that has not been verified.
Authorities are searching the travel records of the two brothers to confirm they had not been in the region since they lived in the United States.
The Associated Press also spoke to their father who resides in Dagestan who said: "My son is a true angel. Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here."
Their father initially came with the family to the United States in 2002.
He worked as a mechanic but never mastered English, thus not able to open his own shop, said the Wall Street Journal.
A friend said he was diagnosed with brain cancer and left for treatment in Germany before seemingly returning to Russia.
Police scanner radio sent out warning Friday morning that the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could be wearing a suicide vest.
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