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There is a huge rush to judgment right now by the press when it comes to the Boston bombings, eerily reminiscent of the Iraq War runup where everyone in the media simply accepted as fact that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when he didn't.

As Richard Clarke points out, there are some traceable ties between al-Qaeda and Chechnya, but he's at least poking at the unknowns, trying to tease out some nuance.

CLARKE: Well, actually George, Chechens have been involved with al-Qaeda since almost the beginning of al-Qaeda. They were involved in fighting for al-Qaeda in Bosnia. They were involved in fighting against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, so there is a record there. But the real question here is, how do you tell when someone gets radicalized? They're normal, they're happy kids in Cambridge and then something happens, a switch is flipped.

How can the FBI, how can Homeland Security notice when that happens, or when the radicalization occurs? Especially if it's self-radicalization online? It's very, very difficult to do. What I want to know is, what did the Russians do when he went back to Russia? They had already said they were interested in him, and then he goes back to Russian and spends over six months there. What did they do? Did they follow him around? That's a question we need an answer to.

Putin's Russia is a bad place to be if you're not an oligarch. Over the past ten years Russian oligarchs have increased their power and their wealth at the expense of their middle class. Power has been consolidated to the point where the sole difference between Soviet Russia and post-Soviet Russia is that they no longer try to conceal it.

Foreign Policy outlines a brutal history of Chechen oppression by Russians throughout the years. It's worth reading if only to understand the environment the Tsarnaev family fled in 2002.

This is the defining moment in Chechens' modern history, when they were wrenched away from their mountains and dumped like rubbish in an unfriendly land with a flat horizon. Even the Russian government has recognized this was a genocide, and yet few Russians today appreciate the trauma it caused. Everyone lost someone and, when they were allowed home beginning in 1959, many of those bodies came home to Chechnya with them, to be buried in the mountains, not in the foreign steppes.

They were kept together by their faith, by their Sufi Islam with its closed brotherhoods and secret rituals. The generation that grew up in Kazakhstan nursed a seed of grievance. That seed grew in the fertile soil of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, and flowered into a declaration of independence in the dying days of the Soviet Union.

And this:

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Via Atlantic Wire:

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the bombing suspects, speaking with reporters, says the family is "ashamed." His brother, the suspects' father, is now back in Russian. The family are ethnic Chechens. When asked what provoked the attack, his answer was simple: "Being losers." He also said that "any connection to Islam … is a fake," though he admitted he hasn't seen his nephews in years. The suspects, he insists, have never been to Chechnya.

He offered this message to his nephew:

If you're alive, turn yourself in. And ask for forgiveness from the victims from the injured. Ask forgiveness from these people. … He brought a shame on our family. He brought a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity.

On Instagram, the president of Chechnya blames the suspects' American upbringing for their alleged crimes.

Two blasts have gone off during morning rush hour in Moscow's underground subways, killing dozens of morning commuters. Via RT.com:

The first explosion happened in a carriage at the central Lubyanka underground station and has claimed the lives of 26 people, with more injured, informs RIA Novosti news agency.

The second blast happened at the Park Kultury Metro station in the third carriage of a train. 15 or more people are reported to be dead, the quantity of injured is unknown.

According to Russia’s Emergency Ministry, the first explosion presumably happened in the second carriage of a Metro train stopped at the Lubyanka station in the very center of Moscow, only several hundred meters from the Kremlin. At 9:30am Moscow time, the Emergencies Ministry gave the number of casualties as 20 to 25 killed and 17 wounded on Lubyanka station, and 12 to 15 killed and over 20 wounded at Park Kultury station.

Officials are investigating the possibility of suicide bombers and/or a coordinated terrorist attack. The video has some stunning photos and video taken by eyewitness and people in close proximity. On a Monday morning rush-hour commute, there's a high likelihood that many more have died than initially reported.

Telegraph.co.uk reports:

Though it has yet to be confirmed, security sources said early indications suggested suspected suicide bombers from the volatile North Caucasus region that includes Chechnya were to blame.

If that is right, it would be the first time since 2004 that they have struck the Moscow metro. Prosecutors opened a criminal case immediately, saying they would be working on the basis that the explosions were the work of terrorists.

Reporters are updating at RT.com as more information is known. Other sources: MSNBC, CNN

Update #1: Video shot of the scene above ground.

Update #2: CBS News now quotes Moscow mayor as attributing both blasts to female suicide bombers.

Update #3: Via STRATFOR:

According to STRATFOR sources in Moscow, the two locations of the attacks on the subway in the city are symbolic. The first attack in Park Kultury is symbolic in that it is one of the city’s cultural centers being located near Gorky Park. The second location of the attack at the metro station of Lubyanka is nearly under the Federal Security Bureau’s headquarters—former KGB headquarters—the security hub of Russia. According to media reports, the attacks were caused by suicide bombers at the peak of rush hour in Moscow. Thus far, rumors are flying that Muslim extremists are responsible for the attack. In the past, there have typically been spring-summer attacks in Moscow in February, and spring is just now arriving in the capital.

Sydney Morning Herald :

A Russian journalist renowned for probing corruption and the brutality of Russia's military campaign in Chechnya has been gunned down and killed in the lobby of her apartment building.

Anna Politkovskaya, 48, who had chronicled nearly every major story in Russia in the past decade, was killed on Saturday. Her reports often clashed with official versions of such events as the hostage crisis at a theatre in Moscow in 2002 and the bloody end of a school siege in Beslan in 2004.

[..]She was a harsh critic of President Vladimir Putin's rule and was working on a story about torture in Chechnya, where a Kremlin-backed strongman has all but routed a separatist movement that sparked two bloody wars, but at a cost to Russia that has yet to be measured. The article was to be published Monday, according to her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent media outlets in Russia. Read on...