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.

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The people of Newtown weren't yet ready to address the question just three days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and a day after President Barack Obama pledged to seek change in memory of the children and six adults ruthlessly slain by a gunman packing a high-powered rifle.

"We're just now getting ready to talk to our son about who was killed," said Robert Licata, the father of a student who escaped harm during the shooting. "He's not even there yet."

Newtown officials couldn't say whether Sandy Hook Elementary, where authorities said all the victims were shot at least twice, would ever reopen. Monday classes were canceled, and the district was making plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to a former school building in a neighboring town.

The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was carrying an arsenal of hundreds of rounds of especially deadly ammunition, authorities said Sunday — enough to kill just about every student in the school if given enough time, raising the chilling possibility that the bloodbath could have been even worse.

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The request, filed in federal court in Manhattan, is based on reporting by The Associated Press, which revealed a clandestine police unit that monitored all aspects of daily life in Muslim neighborhoods. Documents showed that plainclothes officers were being dispatched to eavesdrop inside businesses. Restaurants that serve Muslims were identified and photographed. Hundreds of mosques were investigated. Dozens were infiltrated.

Police also maintained a list of 28 countries that, along with "American Black Muslim," were labeled "ancestries of interest."

"Based on this evidence, there is reason to believe that the NYPD retains records of surveillance of public places that are not limited to information pertaining to 'potential unlawful activity or terrorism,'" lawyers told U.S. District Judge Charles Haight.

A spokesman for the New York Police Department didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

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Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a strike on his convoy carried out by a joint operation of the CIA and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, according to counterterrorism officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. The CIA provided the intelligence and the military provided the firepower.

Al-Awlaki had been under observation for three weeks while they waited for the right opportunity to strike, one of the U.S. officials said.

The cleric known for fiery anti-American rhetoric spread on the Internet was suspected of inspiring the mass shooting at Fort Hood Army base in Texas in 2009 and of taking a more direct role in planning the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound jetliner and other terror attempts against Americans.

He is the most prominent al-Qaida figure to be killed since bin Laden's death in May.

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The documents describe in extraordinary detail a secret program intended to catalog life inside Muslim neighborhoods as people immigrated, got jobs, became citizens and started businesses. The documents undercut the NYPD's claim that its officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism.

It started with one group, Moroccans, but the documents show police intended to build intelligence files on other ethnicities.

Undercover officers snapped photographs of restaurants frequented by Moroccans, including one that was noted for serving "religious Muslims." Police documented where Moroccans bought groceries, which hotels they visited and where they prayed. While visiting an apartment used by new Moroccan immigrants, an officer noted in his reports that he saw two Qurans and a calendar from a nearby mosque.

It was called the Moroccan Initiative.

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The documents, many marked "secret," highlight how the past decade's hunt for terrorists also put huge numbers of innocent people under scrutiny as they went about their daily lives in mosques, businesses and social groups.

An Associated Press investigation last month revealed that a secret squad known as the Demographics Unit sent teams of undercover officers to help key tabs on the area's Muslim communities. The recent documents are the first to quantify that effort.

Since the 2001 attacks, the police department has built one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, one that operates far outside the city limits and maintains a list of "ancestries of interest" that it uses to focus its clandestine efforts. That effort has benefited from federal money and an unusually close relationship with the CIA, one that at times blurred the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence-gathering.

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The panicked superintendent dialed 911, sending police and the FBI rushing to the building near Rutgers University on the afternoon of June 2, 2009. What they found in that first-floor apartment, however, was not a terrorist hideout but a command center set up by a secret team of New York Police Department intelligence officers.

From that apartment, about an hour outside the department's jurisdiction, the NYPD had been staging undercover operations and conducting surveillance throughout New Jersey. Neither the FBI nor the local police had any idea.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.

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Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade was finding the al-Qaida leader.

The analyst was the first to put in writing last summer that the CIA might have a legitimate lead on finding bin Laden. He oversaw the collection of clues that led the agency to a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His was among the most confident voices telling Obama that bin Laden was probably behind those walls.

The CIA will not permit him to speak with reporters. But interviews with former and current U.S. intelligence officials reveal a story of quiet persistence and continuity that led to the greatest counterterrorism success in the history of the CIA. Nearly all the officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters or because they did not want their names linked to the bin Laden operation.

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Faced with these challenges, bin Laden, who hated the United States and decried capitalism, considered a most American of business strategies. Like Blackwater, ValuJet and Philip Morris, perhaps what al-Qaida really needed was a fresh start under a new name.

The problem with the name al-Qaida, bin Laden wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, was that it lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America.

Maybe something like Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad, meaning Monotheism and Jihad Group, would do the trick, he wrote. Or Jama'at I'Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida, meaning Restoration of the Caliphate Group.

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Levinson's fate has been a mystery since 2007. Iran has repeatedly denied knowing what happened to him, but the U.S. has believed he was snatched by Iranian officials.

Current and former U.S. officials say Levinson's family received proof he was alive late last year. The U.S. plans an announcement Thursday and will thank Iran for its help, an apparent sign of improvement in the stalemated relationship. It's still unclear who's holding Levinson, or where.

The Associated Press is not disclosing the nature of the proof because officials believe that would hurt efforts to free him.

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But he was the wrong guy.

A hard-charging CIA analyst had pushed the agency into one of the biggest diplomatic embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism. Yet despite recommendations, the analyst was never punished. In fact, she's risen in the agency.

That botched case is but one example of a CIA accountability process that even some within the agency say is unpredictable and inconsistent. In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officers who committed mistakes that left people wrongly imprisoned or even dead received only minor admonishments or no punishment at all, an Associated Press investigation has found.

And though President Barack Obama has sought to put the CIA's interrogation program behind him, the result of a decade of haphazard accountability is that many officers who made significant missteps are now the senior managers fighting Obama's spy wars.

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Authorities on three continents thwarted the attacks when they seized explosives on cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England on Friday. The plot sent tremors throughout the U.S., where after a frenzied day searching planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily banned all new cargo from Yemen.

Several U.S. officials said they were increasingly confident that al-Qaida's Yemen branch, the group behind the failed Detroit airliner bombing last Christmas, was responsible.

President Barack Obama called the coordinated attacks a "credible terrorist threat."

A Yemeni security official said investigators there were examining 24 other suspect packages in the capital, San'a. He spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to release information and refused to provide more details.

Authorities were questioning cargo workers at the airport as well as employees of the local shipping companies contracted to work with FedEx and UPS, the official said.

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The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive security information.

Authorities on three continents thwarted multiple terrorist attacks aimed at the United States from Yemen on Friday, seizing two explosive packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues and packed aboard cargo jets. The plot triggered worldwide fears that al-Qaida was launching a major new terror campaign.

President Barack Obama's homeland security advisor John Brennan thanked Saudi Arabia for developing the information about terror threat.

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Obama said both had been addressed to Jewish organizations in the Chicago area.

The disclosures triggered a worldwide alert amid fears that al-Qaida was attempting to carry out fresh terror attacks.

The events "underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism," the president said. The packages both originated in Yemen, but Obama did not explicitly assign blame to al-Qaida, which is active in the Arab nation and long has made clear its goal of attacking the United States.

The events unfolded four days before national elections in which discussion of terrorism has played almost no role.

Obama stepped to the podium in the hours after officials disclosed that authorities in Dubai intercepted an explosive device bound for a Chicago-area Jewish institution. The second package was aboard a plane searched in England, and officials said it contained a printer toner cartridge with wires and powder.

That second package was aboard a plane in East Midlands, north of London.

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A suspicious package containing a toner cartridge with wires and powder was found during routine screening of cargo in the United Kingdom, prompting authorities to scour three planes and a truck in the United States on Friday.

Searches were conducted in Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and New York City, but no explosives were found. All the packages believed to be suspicious came from Yemen and were being sent via UPS.

Yemen is the home of the al-Qaida branch that claimed responsibility for an attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A suspicious package containing a toner cartridge with wires and powder was found during routine screening of cargo in the United Kingdom, prompting authorities to scour three planes and a truck in the United States on Friday.

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The decision continues the White House's strategy of fighting terrorism both in court and on the battlefield.

Al-Awlaki, a U.S. and Yemeni citizen born in New Mexico, has inspired a wave of attempted attacks against the U.S. and has become al-Qaida's leading English-speaking voice for recruiting and motivating terrorists. Counterterrorism officials said al-Awlaki, since mid-2009, has become a key operational figure who selects targets and gives orders.

Shortly after the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner, which officials believe al-Awlaki had a hand in planning, the White House took the unprecedented step of authorizing the CIA to kill or capture him. A decision on criminal charges is expected in the next several weeks, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations.

The Nigerian man charged with the attempted bombing, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, suggested in Detroit federal court Monday that he wanted to plead guilty to some charges, raising the possibility that his cooperation could form the foundation for charges against al-Awlaki.

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The investigation looked into whether the Bush administration dismissed the nine U.S. attorneys as a way to influence investigations. The scandal contributed to mounting criticism that the administration had politicized the Justice Department, a charge that contributed to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The people who spoke do The Associated Press about the case did so on condition of anonymity because an official announcement has not been made.

In 2008, the Justice Department assigned Nora Dannehy, a career prosecutor from Connecticut with a history of rooting out government wrongdoing, to investigate the firings. One of the people who spoke to the AP, a lawyer, said Dannehy called him Wednesday afternoon and told him no charges would be filed.

Much of the investigation focused on the firing of New Mexico U.S. attorney David Iglesias and whether the Bush administration misled Congress about his and other firings.

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Officials believe the men were planning attacks with portable but powerful bombs like the ones at the heart of last year's failed suicide attack in the New York City subway, an attack U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called one of the most serious plots since 9/11. On Wednesday, U.S. prosecutors revealed the existence of a related plot in Manchester, England.

The plots underscore al-Qaida's interest in smaller-level attacks that don't require the intricate planning and coordination of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in which airplanes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. And they follow a trend in which the terrorist group has used operatives inside potential target countries, rather than trying to sneak people across increasingly secure borders.

The three men, whose names were not released, had been under surveillance for more than a year. Two were arrested in Norway and one in Germany. Officials would not say what country or site was the target of the latest terror threat, or even whether they believed the men had selected a target.

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Law enforcement officials say Adnan Shukrijumah (ahd-NAHN' el SHOOK'-ree joohm-HAH') will be named in an indictment in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.

Shukrijumah has eluded the FBI for years and remains at large. He is among the top candidates to be al-Qaida's next head of external operations, the man in charge of planning attacks worldwide.

Authorities believe Shukrijumah met with a would-be suicide bomber in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since 9/11.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

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Associated Press writer Tom Hays contributed from New York.

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The magazine, called Inspire, is being run by al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, which has been linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a U.S.-bound airliner.

The launch suggests that, as al-Qaida's core has been weakened by CIA drone airstrikes, the group hopes to broaden its reach inside the U.S., where officials have seen a spate of homegrown terrorists.

"This new magazine is clearly intended for the aspiring jihadist in the U.S. or U.K. who may be the next Fort Hood murderer or Times Square bomber," Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar and former CIA officer, said.

Tuesday's launch did not go smoothly. The magazine was 67 pages long, but all but the first three pages were just garbled computer code, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites and obtained a copy of the magazine.

The table of contents included articles such as "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," which promised to be "a detailed yet short, easy-to-read manual on how to make a bomb using ingredients found in a kitchen."

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