Reports that the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombings are Chechens—a heavily Muslim ethnic group that hails from the North Caucasus region—have wire services scrambling to provide context to Chechnya's long and violent fight for independence from Russia. One primer in wide circulation today comes from the Council on Foreign Relations. While Russia captured the Chechen capital in 2000 and theoretically reasserted control over the republic, sporadic violence from various insurgent groups has continued since, it states. One Chechen militant, Doku Umarov, claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on Moscow's subway in 2010. What's more, "experts say there are several ties between the al-Qaeda network and Chechen groups," says the CFR primer. And all of this tells us what exactly?