Two law enforcement officials told The New York Times that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who survives, admitted the plans two days after he was captured in a suburban Boston backyard on April 19.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also confessed that he and his older brother had watched online sermons of radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki before carrying out the attacks, according to the Times sources.

The Tsarnaev brothers moved up the date of the attack to April 15, Patriot Day in Boston, when they finished making their pressure-cooker bombs ahead of schedule, according to the officials. The paper said the bombs were assembled in the Cambridge, Mass., apartment of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body had lain unclaimed, but Boston Department of Public Safety spokesman Terrel Harris said a funeral home retained by the 26-year-old's family picked up the remains Thursday afternoon.

He said he had no more information about plans for the remains.

Continue Reading...

From Los Angeles to Philadelphia, efforts include trying to gain police access to cameras used to monitor traffic, expanding surveillance networks in some major cities and enabling officers to get regular access to security footage at businesses.

Some in law enforcement, however, acknowledge that their plans may face an age-old obstacle: Americans' traditional reluctance to give the government more law enforcement powers out of fear that they will live in a society where there is little privacy.

"Look, we don't want an occupied state. We want to be able to walk the good balance between freedom and security," Los Angeles police Deputy Chief Michael Downing, who heads the department's counter-terrorism and special operations bureau.

"If this helps prevent, deter, but also detect and create clues to who did (a crime), I guess the question is can the American public tolerate that type of security," he said.

Continue Reading...

With the caveat that “interfaith programs are not a miracle solution,” he offers three ways that this work can help:

First, “interfaith helps harmonize people’s identities.” Patel goes on:

“In America, just about everyone is some sort of hyphenated hybrid of race, religion and ethnicity/nationality... Religious extremists try to separate people’s various identities and pit them against each other.”

Patel suggests that the Tsarnaev brothers might have been less vulnerable to extremism if they “had been involved in discussions with people from other backgrounds about how their faith identity was mutually enriching with their nationality and citizenship.”

Continue Reading...

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice. A third man, Robel Phillipos, was charged with lying to investigators about the visit to Tsarnaev's room.

In court papers, the FBI said Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev agreed to throw the backpack in the garbage — it was later found in a landfill by law enforcement officers — after concluding from news reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was one of the bombers.

A court appearance for the three was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Their lawyers refused to comment ahead of the hearing.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured on April 15 when two bombs exploded near the finish line. The suspect's brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died after a gunfight with police days later. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, was captured and lies in a prison hospital.

Continue Reading...

The police department made the announcement in a tweet Wednesday morning, saying more details would follow. Police spokeswoman Cheryl Fiandaca confirmed the tweet but referred all other questions to the FBI.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured on April 15 when two bombs exploded near the finish line.

Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with police several days later. His brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured and lies in a hospital prison.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relatives will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it, an uncle said. Tsarnaev, 26, has been at the medical examiner's office in Massachusetts since he died after a gunfight with authorities more than a week ago.

Amato DeLuca, the Rhode Island attorney for his widow, Katherine Russell, said Tuesday that his client had just learned that the medical examiner was ready to release Tsarnaev's body and that she wants it released to his side of the family.

Police said Tsarnaev ran out of ammunition before his 19-year-old brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing the scene. His cause of death has been determined but will not be made public until his remains are claimed.

Continue Reading...

In the aftermath of the attack, some people assume it was the work of a sinister global conspiracy against America, despite little evidence. Others see an unemployed and alienated loner, unable to connect to the promise of the American dream, who turned to extremism out of personal despair or mental illness. Many political commentators call for a crackdown on immigration, the restriction of civil liberties and an aggressive military-style counterattack against anti-American radicalism, both at home and abroad. As the nation’s energetic young president puts it, counteracting this tide of violence is the most significant question facing the United States, and one that could even endanger the nation’s future.

Continue Reading...

The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center overnight and was taken to the Federal Medical Center Devens about 40 miles west of Boston.

The facility, on the decommissioned Fort Devens U.S. Army base, treats federal prisoners and detainees who require specialized long-term medical or mental health care.

The 19-year-old Tsarnaev is recovering from a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway.

Continue Reading...

In 2008, the hysterical backlash to the above comment by Barack Obama's minister became a high-profile example of one of the most insidious rules in American politics: You are not allowed to honestly discuss the Central Intelligence Agency's concept of "blowback" without putting yourself at risk of being deemed a traitor to country.

Now, five years later, with America having killed thousands of Muslim civilians in its drone strikes and wars, that rule is thankfully being challenged, and not by someone who is so easily smeared. Instead, the apostate is one of this epoch's most revered journalists, and because of that, we will see whether this country is mature enough to face one of its biggest national security quandaries.

This is the news from Tom Brokaw's appearance on “Meet the Press” last Sunday. Discussing revelations that the bombing suspects may be connected to Muslim fundamentalism, he said:

Continue Reading...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly spoke at a briefing Thursday.

Kelly says the two suspects had a pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs they wanted to set off.

They said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) told Boston investigators from his hospital bed that he and his brother had discussed going to New York to detonate their remaining explosives. They said they decided it spontaneously.

Kelly had said a day earlier that the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were targeting New York, but was later briefed by federal officials.

Tsarnaev traveled to New York at least once last fall. There is a photo of the suspect in Times Square.

Tsarnaev's older brother, Tamerlan (TA'-mehr-luhn), died in a shootout with police.

Continue Reading...

To help bring Dzhokhar Tsarneav to justice, we took advantage of what is usually invisible to us—heat.

Photos (and videos) like these highlight just how far our detective technology has come. Specifically, Tsarneav was indentified with the aid of a FLIR (forward-looking infrared) camera mounted to a police helicopter. But how does this apparent X-ray vision work, and is there any way the bomber could have hid from this seemingly all-seeing eye?

Continue Reading...

Yet the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects has not returned to the United States from the Russian republic of Dagestan to bury the oldest boy or to care for the youngest — despite her claims they are innocent.

The reason could be Zubeidat Tsarnaeva’s own legal problems: she could be arrested on an outstanding warrant for shoplifting if she sets foot on US soil.

An official from the Natick District Court told ABC News that Tsarnaeva — her last name is slightly different from her sons' because in Russian, all female names end in "a" — failed to appear in court on Oct. 25 to face charges she stole $1,600 worth of designer clothing from a department store.

Continue Reading...

Tsarnaev died Friday after a gun battle with police. Authorities have said his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR'), ran over him as he fled.

Dzhokhar was later apprehended in Watertown and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. He could face the death penalty.

A spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said Wednesday that Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body is still in the medical examiner's custody. He wouldn't comment on whether Tsarnaev's wife has asked to claim the body.

Authorities say the brothers planted two bombs near the finish line of the marathon April 15. Three people were killed and more than 200 were wounded.

Continue Reading...

Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived in Russia in January 2012 and left six months later to return to his home in Boston.

Family members report him visiting his father and other relatives in the Caucasus region of Dagestan and he is thought to have traveled to neighboring Chechnya, the family's ancestral homeland.

Beyond that, reports of his movements are murky.

The surviving accused bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has reportedly told investigators he and his brother acted alone in planning the attack and planting the devices that killed three people and injured over 200 close the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Tamerlan is believed to be the plot’s instigator.

Continue Reading...

Nobody knows for sure, but some experts in sibling research say the powerful bonds that can develop between brothers may have played a role.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week at age 26 in a shootout with police, and his 19-year-old sibling Dzhokhar are hardly the first brothers involved in criminal acts. Three pairs of brothers were among the 9/11 terrorists, for example, and three brothers were convicted in 2008 for planning to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

"There are a lot of criminal enterprises where you have brothers involved," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "It is almost always the older brother who is the leader. ... Typically the younger brother looks up to the older brother in many ways."

Friends and relatives paint markedly different pictures of the Tsarnaev pair. Tamerlan could be argumentative and sullen, saying at one point he hadn't made a single American friend since immigrating years earlier, and he was arrested in 2009 for assault and battery on a girlfriend before those charges were dismissed. Dzhokhar appears to have been well-adjusted and well-liked in both high school and college.

Continue Reading...

“There's just too many things going on that, to me, doesn't make any sense,” Tremblay told the local Fosters' Daily Democrat, explaining other parts of a theory that is all too familiar a little over a week after the bombings.

Continue Reading...

Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.

"Somehow, he just took his brain," said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence. Efforts over several days by The Associated Press to identify and interview Misha have been unsuccessful.

Tamerlan's relationship with Misha could be a clue in understanding the motives behind his religious transformation and, ultimately, the attack itself. Two U.S. officials say he had no tie to terrorist groups.

Throughout his religious makeover, Tamerlan maintained a strong influence over his siblings, including Dzhokhar, who investigators say carried out the deadly attack by his older brother's side, killing three and injuring 264 people.

Continue Reading...

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) had been listed in serious condition at a Boston hospital since he was captured Friday. On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney's office said his condition had been upgraded to fair.

The 19-year-old was wounded in a shootout with police and suffered gunshot wounds in the head, neck, legs and hand.

Tsarnaev was charged Monday in the twin bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260. His older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed during the shootout.

Continue Reading...

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's answers led them to believe he and his brother were motivated by a radical brand of Islam without major terror connections, said U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

But the written communication precluded back-and-forth exchanges often crucial to establishing key facts and meaning, said officials who cautioned they were still trying to verify what Tsarnaev told them and were poring over his telephone and online communications.

Tsarnaev was interrogated and charged Monday in his hospital room, where he was in serious condition with the throat wound and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway. His brother, Tamerlan, 26, died Friday after a fierce gunbattle with police.

The charges came just hours before a memorial service for one of the three people killed in the bombings, 23-year-old Boston University graduate student Lu Lingzi, was held at the school and attended by hundreds of people, including Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Continue Reading...

From her bed at Brigham and Women's Hospital on Monday, the 38-year-old Rhode Island woman reflected on the terror of April 15 — and on the waves of agony and grace that followed in the week since.

"I'm trying to be positive about things," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview before her surgery. "And hope that my life doesn't have to change much."

The day of the bombings, Abbott and a half-dozen friends took in the traditional Patriots' Day Red Sox game at Fenway Park. They left early and headed to Forum, where a friend tends bar and where former New England Patriots were gathered to raise money for offensive guard Joe Andruzzi's cancer foundation.

The restaurant is at 755 Boylston Street, not far from the marathon's finish line.

Abbott was at the back of the long line, waiting as bouncers checked ID's, when the first blast went off. Unlike many, she knew exactly what it was.

Continue Reading...

The disparity between the brothers' struggle to assimilate in the U.S. and their alleged bombing of the Boston Marathon reflects what counterterror experts describe as a classic pattern of young first- or second-generation immigrants striking out after struggling to fit in. The U.S. has long been worried about people in America who are not tied to any designated terrorist group but who are motivated by ideologies that lead them to commit violent acts. Some are motivated by radical religious interpretations; others feel ostracized by their communities.

Three U.S. officials involved in the investigation said the brothers had no links to any terrorist groups. After interrogating Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Monday, U.S. officials believe they were motivated by their faith, apparently an anti-American, radical version of Islam. Another official called them aspiring jihadists. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

Continue Reading...