Misha found; Tsarnaev news: "Misha" kept being mentioned by the Boston Bombing suspects and their family. The FBI has not been able to find anyone named Misha; some have suggested it was a hoax or red herring. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev's family members kept mentioning him, saying Misha was an inspiration for Tamerlan's interest in radical, violent Islam. We knew that he was an Armenian Muslim convert, in the Boston area, balding, and red-headed. Yet nobody could find him.

Speculation included suggestions that Misha is an FBI informant who set his sights on Tamerlan for a federal sting operation, then gave up the idea.  Armenian-American groups said that an Armenian would never convert to Islam because of the long, violent history of conflict between traditionally-Christian Armenians and Muslims.

Law enforcement officers told the Associated Press over the weekend that the FBI had identified Misha but found no ties to the Boston bombings, or to terrorism at all. After this news came came Saturday, on Sunday evening Christian Caryl at the New York Review of Books said something very different.

"Today I was able to meet 'Misha,' whose real name is Mikhail Allakhverdov," he wrote. "Having been referred by a family in Boston that was close to the Tsarnaevs, I found Allakverdov at his home in Rhode Island, in a lower middle class neighborhood, where he lives in a modest, tidy apartment with his elderly parents," Caryl wrote. "He confirmed he was a convert to Islam and that he had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but he flatly denied any part in the bombings. 'I wasn't his teacher. If I had been his teacher, I would have made sure he never did anything like this,' Allakhverdov said."

Caryl also wrote that he matched the description given by the Tsarnaevs, and that "Allakhverdov said he had known Tamerlan in Boston, where he lived until about three years ago, and has not had any contact with him since. He declined to describe the nature of his acquaintance with Tamerlan or the Tsarnaev family, but said he had never met the family members who are now accusing him of radicalizing Tamerlan. He also confirmed he had been interviewed by the FBI and that he has cooperated with the investigation."

Interestingly enough, the suspected bombers' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, also became radicalized due to the influence of Misha, according to an unrelated AP report published on Sunday. "In recent years, people noticed a change", they reported. "She began wearing a hijab and cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 being a plot against Muslims."

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva  is quoted as saying, "I wasn't praying until he prayed in our house, so I just got really ashamed that I am not praying, being a Muslim, being born Muslim. I am not praying. Misha, who converted, was praying," she said.

These stories don't quite add up - if Misha has never met Tamerlan Tsarnaev's family, how could he have radicalized the suspected bombers' mother? So, while the details of the story are unclear as of yet, Misha has at least been identified.