The AP just published a story that sheds some light on how the elder Boston Marathon bombing suspect, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, reportedly came to adopt a very radical worldview in the years leading up to he and his brother Dzhokahr's attack on the Boston Marathon.


The bulk of the AP's story is constructed from interviews with Ruslan Tsarni—one of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan's uncles—and Tamerlan's ex-brother-in-law, Elmirza Khozhugov. Both tell the AP stories about a mysterious man named Misha, who they say befriended Tamerlan and turned him toward a very strict strain of Islam. Tamerlan reportedly fell under other radical influences, though, and one of those happened to be the batshit conspiracy-theorist website known as Infowars:

Tamerlan took an interest in Infowars, a conspiracy theory website. Khozhugov said Tamerlan was interested in finding a copy of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a piece of anti-Semitic literature claiming a Jewish plot to take over the world.


The people behind Infowars are the same crazy people who flood internet message boards with conspiracy theories about how 9/11 was a "false flag" operation perpetrated by the government. Look, they even did the same thing in the aftermath of the marathon bombings.

The irony here is almost unfathomable. Try wrapping your mind around the fact that a collection of conspiracy loons who believe that every major terrorist attack is an inside job may have helped to inspire an actual terrorist attack carried out by actual terrorists. I suppose there can only be one explanation–courtesy Deadspin pal Jeb Lund:


[AP]