MOSCOW - Two brothers identified as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing grew up in a Russian region near Chechnya but have had little to do with the area for years, says a spokesman for Chechnyan leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Police and family members identified the two suspects in the marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 170 others on Monday as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnayev and 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnayev.

Spokesman Alvi Karimov told reporters that the brothers lost connection with the Chechnya republic many years ago.

"The people suspected of committing crimes in Boston have nothing to do with Chechnya," Karimov said reporters.

The Tsarnayev family left Chechnya for Kazakhstan and moved to the United States from there, Karimov said.

The two brothers were born and raised in the Russian city of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan republic, said Temirmagomed Davudov, their former school teacher.

"The two brothers and their two sisters used to study in our school for one year," said Davudov, director of Makhachkala's No. 1 public school.

He said the brothers left Dagestan in 2002 while still being minor children.

Russian bloggers discovered accounts of the junior brother, Dzhokhar, on Russian-language social networks and reported that the suspected bomber described himself as a person who "only cares of career and money."

US police shot and killed Tamerlan Tsarnayev in a gunbattle on Friday but his younger brother remains at large.