Boston bomb suspect Tsarnaev lived quietly during 6-month Dagestan visit

When Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to renew his passport and visit his father last year, he spent time helping remodel a room into a prospective perfume shop and apparently slept a lot, says a family friend. But the surroundings were anything but quiet.

Violence that has racked the North Caucasus region for years has spread to the republic of Dagestan and reached its capital, Makhachkala, which can often seem a city under siege. Checkpoints are a common sight, as are patrolling police with body armour and assault rifles.

The battle between authorities and militants espousing separatist or radical Islamist ideals has taken on characteristics of an exchange of vendettas. One day, a body is found in a ditch with signs of torture and gunshot wounds to the head. The next, a police checkpoint is attacked.

Tsarnaev, 26, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, was killed early on Friday in a confrontation with police. His 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, who is also a suspect, was captured hours later.

The brothers had lived in Dagestan before moving to the United States about a decade ago. Their mother acknowledged in an interview with a Russian television station that Tamerlan had become more religious and had been interviewed by the FBI about his views the year before he returned to the region for six months last year. His visit has led to speculation linking them with the Caucasus Emirate movement led by feared warlord Doku Umarov. However, a website used by Russia's North Caucasus rebels yesterday denied any link to the attacks in Boston.