Officials probe links between Canadian jihadist, Boston bombing suspect

MAKACHKALA, Russia – Security officials in Russia say one of the two Boston bombing suspects disappeared during a visit to southern Russia after police killed a Canadian jihadist last year.

Canadian William Plotnikov — who was born in Russia but immigrated to Toronto with his parents as a teen — was killed in July 2012 in Dagestan, where he had travelled to join Islamic militants.

U.S. law enforcement officials have been trying to figure out if Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was indoctrinated or trained by militants during his visit to Dagestan, a province that has become a hotbed of Islamic insurgency.

A security official with Russia’s federally run Anti-Extremism Centre, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, says the Russians share the American officials’ concerns.

He says Russian agents were watching Tsarnaev during his six-month trip to Dagestan but he disappeared two days after Plotnikov’s death.

In a separate report, Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper said security officials suspected ties between Tsarnaev and Plotnikov and said the two men had social networking links that brought Tsarnaev to the attention of Russian security services for the first time in late 2010.

Both men were amateur boxers of roughly the same age whose families had moved from Russia to North America when they were teens. They also both turned to Islam, expressed radical beliefs and travelled to Dagestan.

What has not been independently confirmed is whether the two men actually communicated on social networks or crossed paths either in Dagestan or in Toronto, where Plotnikov had lived with his parents and where Tsarnaev had an aunt.