Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev became a killer when he traveled to Russia in 2011, but the State Department and White House walked back his remarks right after he made them, Foreign Policy reports:
Kerry was in Belgium on Wednesday for a NATO foreign minister's meeting and made the comments about the 26-year old alleged bomber during a brief interaction with reporters.
"We just had a young person who went to Russia, Chechnya, who blew people up in Boston," Kerry said. "So he didn't stay where he went, but he learned something where he went and he came back with a willingness to kill people."
Those comments suggested that Tsarnaev was not able or willing to commit acts of terror and murder before he traveled to the Russian region of Dagestan for six months in 2011, but made some connections to people there that resulted in a more fervent anti-American ideology that contributed to the Boston Marathon attack.
Press officials in the White House and State Department said Kerry was not disclosing any information on the case.
"The secretary was simply expressing broad concern about radicalism and not necessarily offering any more specific information about this case," Spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Wednesday. "I'm clarifying his remarks and saying that he was simply expressing broad concern about radicalism. This isn't about new details about the ongoing investigation."