Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric killed in 2011 in Yemen by an American drone strike.
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted to FBI interrogators that he and his brother originally planned their assault as a suicide bombing on the Fourth of July. According to an official, they planned to use pressure-cooker bombs and other homemade explosive devices, but they finished building the bombs early and pushed up the date to Patriots’ Day, April 15. The brothers drove around Boston before settling on the marathon finish line as a target. He also said they watched online videos of radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
The new details of what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told authorities emerged as the F.B.I. moved forward on Thursday with trying to determine how the brothers were radicalized and the role that Tamerlan’s wife, Katherine Russell, [above] may have played in the plot or in helping the brothers evade the authorities after the attacks.
As part of those efforts, the authorities have sought to determine whether fingerprints and DNA found on bomb fragments were from Ms. Russell. According to two other law enforcement officials, Ms. Russell’s fingerprints and DNA do not match those found on the fragments.
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ead it at The New York Times
Three Marathon Suspects Arrested
Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbaev, and Tsarnaev (Image taken from Dias Kadyrbayev's webpage
Three more suspects have been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings, police say. CBS reports that the trio was arrested for harboring or aiding the Tsarnaev brothers after bombing. Two of them, Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, are reportedly from Kazakhstan and went to school with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They are expected to be charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements, which are federal charges. The suspects allegedly destroyed and concealed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s backpack and laptop after the bombing.They had been texting Tsarnaev about the bombing and believed he was joking, but realized he was involved when they found bomb materials in his dorm room. Panicking, they decided to take his backpack and laptop, which they later dumped in a landfill.
The two reportedly have been held in a county jail for more than a week on allegations they violated their student visas. The third man, who is a U.S. citizen, will be charged with making false statements. According to ABC News, the new suspects allegedly removed a backpack full of fireworks that was in Dzhokhar’s dorm room at the request of Dzhokhar after the bombing.
A UMass-Dartmouth coed who says she once had a two-week “fling” with suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is ready to dish. The girl, who says she lived in Tsarnaev’s dormitory, says their 14-day romance came to an end because he invited her back to his room and wanted to go further than she was willing. ...Her other big reveal was that the two of three students who were just taken into custody “idolized” Tsarnaev, who was the “ringleader” of a pack of five Russian-speaking friends.
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