Boston bombers 'driven by failures, inner demons' On the outer ... Tamerlan and Dzohkhar Tsarnaev became alienated by their personal failures. THE Boston bombers may have been motivated less by Islamist ideology and more by their own personal failings and inner demons - making the attack more like the mass shooting at Sandy Hook than an al-Qaeda terrorist plot. A five-month investigation by the Boston Globe offers new insight into what drove the Tsarnaev brothers to carry out the bombings and the deeply dysfuntional family that produced them. Family friends believe the eldest brother Tamerlan suffered from schizophrenia, The Boston Globe claims. Horrific attack ... The brothers were caught on camera near the finish line just minutes before the bombs went off. The 26-year-old boxer reportedly confided in a friend that he heard a voice inside his head that was issuing orders and telling him to perform certain acts. "He was torn between those two people," Tamerlan's friend told the Boston Globe. The two brothers struggled to find a place in America after moving from Kyrgastan to Boston with their parents, who claimed they had been persecuted in their homeland because they were Chechen Muslims. Deeply dysfunctional ... Zubeidat, the mother of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told friends she worked as a lawyer in her native country. The family submitted an application requesting asylum in the US but family friends claim they made this up in order to get a visa. The Globe reports that the boys' mother Zubeidat told friends and neighbours that they had been lawyers in their native country, but there is no evidence to confirm this. Visa application ... Anzor Tsarnaev claimed that the family were persecuted in their native country because they were Chechen Muslims. Zubeidat claimed that when her husband Aznor tried to prosecute a Russian mob boss, he was kidnapped and tortured fror a week. The Globe says this story is unlikely to be true and that Aznor was more likey to have been run out of town by an organised crime syndicate after smuggling cigarettes. After struggling to adapt to life in the US, Tamerlan turned to radical Islam while Dzokhar became obsessed with drugs and started stealing marijuana. Friends told the Globe he often hauled in $1000 a week in cash and sometimes carried a handgun to protect the stash, too, friends told the newspaper. But his fast lifestyle meant his school work suffered and he was on the verge of being kicked out of school when he and his brother allegedly planted the bombs, the Globe says.