Boston Marathon bombing suspect studied engineering

BOSTON, April 19 (UPI) -- Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev studied engineering and trained to be a boxer, a Boston University profile said.

Tsarnaev, 26, killed early Friday in a confrontation with police, was a former student at Bunker Hill Community College. He was profiled in 2010 for a story published in Boston University's magazine The Comment, The Hill reported.

The article, which includes photos of Tsarnaev training at the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts Center in Boston, quoted Tsarnaev saying he wanted to compete in the Olympics, The Hill said.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who described himself as a Muslim, said he would "rather compete for the U.S. than Russia" if he couldn't compete as a representative for an independent Chechnya.

He told The Comment although he had lived in the United States for five years, "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."

Police said Tsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 170. A massive manhunt was under way Friday for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The Boston University article said the family left Chechnya in the 1990s.