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Police Chief: Surviving Boston Bombing Brother Ran Over, Killed Older Brother

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Photo Credit: AP

Watertown police chief Edward Deveau said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspected Boston Marathon bomber who was captured alive on Friday, killed his older brother Tamerlan by driving over him and dragging his body through the street with a carjacked SUV Thursday night.

Deveau, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Saturday, said police officers were handcuffing Tamerlan, who had run out of ammunition, when Dzhokhar came at them in a carjacked SUV. Watertown officers were able to get out of the way.
The brothers were armed with pipe bombs, firearms, and explosives and had been in a firefight with officers on Thursday night after they reportedly “assassinated” an MIT police officer. Deveau said a pressure cooker bomb also went off during the firefight, causing a major explosion. The brothers threw explosives at the officers.

Dzhokhar eventually abandoned the SUV, fleeing on foot. He hid in a land-docked boat in a Watertown neighborhood, where law enforcement found him Friday evening.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boston Bombs: Obama Lulled America Into False Confidence Over Terror Threat

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Photo Credit: transplanted mountaineer

In his State of the Union address to the American people earlier this year, Barack Obama declared that he was “confident” of achieving “our objective of defeating the core of al-Qaeda”.

Although he acknowledged the need to pursue the “remnants” of the terrorist group and its affiliates, the overall message was clear – al-Qaeda was badly degraded, the tides of war were receding and the US was winning this fight that was no longer even officially a war.

The Boston bombings would appear to present a fundamental challenge to that assessment and once again bring the nagging uncertainty of terrorism back on to the American main street.

It is too soon to be absolutely sure the attacks were motivated by jihadist ideology, but the Islamic videos on the website of the older of the two Tsarnaev brothers point very firmly in that direction.

They bring home the complexity of the global Islamist threat and the fact that it cannot be confined to wars in distant lands, or fought at arm’s length using drones, as the Obama administration has quietly yet insistently led America to believe.

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Obama on Bomb Suspect Arrest: Don't 'Rush' to Judge 'Entire Groups of People'

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Photo Credit: Getty

Following Friday’s capture of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, President Obama warned against rushing to judgment about “entire groups of people,” the Associated Press reported.

“In this age of instant reporting, tweets, and blogs, there’s a temptations to latch on to any bit of information sometimes to jump to conclusions. When a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important that we do this right. That’s why we have investigations. That’s why we relentlessly gather the facts, that’s why we have courts. That’s why we take care not to rush to judgement, not about the motivations of these individuals and certainly not about entire groups of people,” he said.

“Translation: don’t look behind the curtain at the Islamic radical connection,” said a post at Weasel Zippers.

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Home-Grown Terrorist Attack Threatens to Disrupt Obama Agenda

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The Boston Marathon terrorist attack allegedly hatched by two brothers from Chechnya is threatening to disrupt President Obama’s second-term agenda.

Opponents of immigration reform — the most promising priority of Obama’s second term remaining after the defeat of gun control — are already using the attack to try to slow progress on a bipartisan Senate bill.

More broadly, the attack is raising questions about how the administration should deal with 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured Friday after an exhaustive manhunt in Boston, and concerns over whether the FBI was too complacent in letting his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev out of its sight after interviewing him in 2011.

The issues are expected to create political problems and distractions for Obama, whose fight against terrorism has largely been a political success highlighted by the killing of Osama bin Laden.

It is unclear how much oxygen the issue will consume in the coming weeks, but it seems certain it will shift the political debates in Washington.

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Captured Bombing Suspect: Pot Head, Obama Supporter and Other Quirky Details

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

By Robby Soave. Boston bombing suspect and fugitive Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a “normal pot head” who supported President Obama for re-election last November, according to friends and his Twitter account.

Chris Barry, who attended the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with Tsarnaev, described him as normal teenager who loved to smoke pot and cigarettes every day.

“He was a pot head, a normal pot head,” said Barry in an interview with Politico. “I couldn’t even imagine him being mad at someone let alone hurting someone.”

Tsarnaev, a Muslim, did not come across as strongly religious, said Barry.

“He never brought it up. It seemed like he could care less,” he said. Read more from this story HERE.

“Barack, You My Dawg,” and other Pro-Obama Tweets

By Matthew Sheffield. Several posts on what several news organizations have confirmed as the Twitter profile of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indicate that that the 19-year-old Chechnyan immigrant was a supporter of Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

If that is indeed the case, it does not mean that Obama has any sort of connection with or responsibility for the bombing suspect or his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It does, however, completely reverse the fantasy that many American liberals were openly hoping for: that the bombing suspects might be revealed as Timothy McVeigh 2.0, someone whose very name they could use to smear and deride anyone who stands against their belief system. In other words, one of those “dog whistles” we keep hearing so much about.

Now that information has emerged which not only indicates the suspected bombers were not radical conservatives but that one of them appears to be a supporter of President Obama, how widely will it be spread in the endless series of reports trying to report as many details about the two suspects? Read more from this story HERE.

Father of Captured Bombing Suspect: ‘Tell the Police Everything’

By Bianna Golodryga. The father of a suspected Boston Marathon bomber started to cry when ABC News told him that his son had been captured alive.

“Thank God,” Anzor Tsarnaev said, speaking in Russian, thanking ABC News for relaying word that his son, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was in custody and alive.

Asked what he wanted to tell his son, Anzor Tsarnaev said, “Tell police everything. Everything. Just be honest.”

Tsarnaev spoke to ABC News on more than one occasion today from his home in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, Russia, as Boston police carried out an intense dragnet for his son.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev survived a running gun battle with police during the night that left an MIT security officer dead and a Boston police officer badly wounded. His older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in the shootout. Read more from this story HERE.

Captured Suspect: ‘I Don’t Have a Single American Friend’

By CBS Boston. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Boston Marathon bombing suspect who was killed early Friday, once described himself as not having a single American friend and aspired to be a U.S. Olympic boxer.

As police continue the extensive manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hours following a fatal shootout that killed his older brother, more details about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s personal life and past athletic aspirations are coming to light.

In Johannes Hirn’s photo essay, “Will Box for Passport,” Hirn profiled Tamerlan Tsarnaev on his road to the National Golden Gloves competition in Salt Lake City. Throughout the 15-picture photo essay, which has since been made a private gallery, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s life is on display, talking openly about his religion, his straight-edge lifestyle, his boxing dreams, and the difficult time he had adjusting to living in the U.S. for five years.

“I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them,” Tamerlan Tsarnaev said in the photo essay. Read more from this story HERE.

Background on the Capture of the Second Bombing Suspect

By Sheldon Alberts, Daniel Strauss and Jonathan Easley. “We are exhausted folks, but we have a victory here tonight,” Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben said.

After a long day of tension and uncertainty, Tsarnaev’s capture happened in a burst of action Friday evening. It started shortly after an update on the investigation in which law enforcement announced that a daylong lockdown on Boston and the surrounding area had been lifted.

Just after that, gunshots sounded in Watertown, where officials suspected Tsarnaev had been hiding. A fleet of police cars sped to surround the suspect. What followed was a standoff as law enforcement officials eventually closed in on Tsarnaev, who was hiding in a boat behind a Watertown home.

Just before 9 p.m., Boston police tweeted that the suspect was custody.

“CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody,” the department wrote on Twitter. Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. Peter King on Spread of Radical Islam: ‘We can’t be Politically Correct’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

By Jeff Poor. New York Republican Rep. Peter King said Friday that the potential radicalization of members of the Muslim Chechen community should be investigated after the Boston Marathon bombing.

“We can’t be politically correct,” he said on CNN’s “The Lead.” “I think we have to see, has radicalization has extended into the Chechen community?”

Host Jake Tapper asked King about one of the suspect’s apparent YouTube pages, where a video had been posted featuring Feiz Mohammad.

Tapper asked if King knew anything about Mohammad, who is described as a “fundamentalist Australian Muslim preacher.”

“I’m not aware of that radical cleric, but I do know that the idea of radical clerics in the Muslim community — again, it’s a small percentage — but they have had a disproportionate influence,” King said. “And I think that is something that has to be looked at. We can’t be politically correct. Read more from this story HERE.

Allen West: ‘We have domestic radical Islamic terror problem in America’

By Caroline May. Former Florida Rep. Allen West issued a harsh attack on political correctness Friday, as authorities continued to pursue second Boston attack suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“Let me be very clear, the terrorist attack in Boston and evolving events indicate we have a domestic radical Islamic terror problem in America,” the Republican wrote on his Facebook page.

According to the former congressman, America must reject “political correctness” and advocacy groups like the Council on American–Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Muslim American Society, which he linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Read more from this story HERE.

GOP lawmaker calls for ‘increased surveillance’ of Muslims after attack

By Julian Pecquet. Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) called for “increased surveillance” of Muslims on Friday, saying the Boston Marathon bombing suspects’ links to Chechnya represented a “new front” in the war on terror.

“Police have to be in the community, they have to build up as many sources as they can, and they have to realize that the threat is coming from the Muslim community and increase surveillance there,” the chairman of the House subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence told National Review. “We can’t be bound by political correctness. I think we need more police and more surveillance in the communities where the threat is coming from.”

He went on to suggest that the two suspects’ Chechen background and Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s visit to Russia last year suggested increased radicalization of the Chechen community. The two brothers immigrated to the United States in 2001 from Kyrgyzstan, and the FBI has so far not released any evidence that they did not act alone.
“There’s never been any history of any threats emanating in this country from the Chechen community,” King told the Review. “So in a way this opens up a new front in the war.” Read more from this story HERE.

Media Stumped: It's the Jihad, Stupid

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Photo Credit: Drew Zahn

Many in the mainstream media are mystified, unable to pin down a possible motive behind the Boston bombings despite a wealth of information that strongly suggests the suspects had ties to radical Islam.

For example, it was discovered early Friday that one suspect had a playlist on YouTube titled “Terrorist” and another called “Islam.” He also subscribed to a channel called “Allah is the One.”

The two suspects are immigrant brothers from the Russian republic of Chechnya. The playlist belonged to 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed overnight in a shootout with police in the Boston area. Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into custody late Friday evening.

The older brother’s playlist also included “The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags From Khorasan,” described as ”a key part of jihadist mythology: That one of the most significant battles fought against the ‘infidels’ will take place in the Khorasan, a geographic area that includes parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan” and has been increasingly mentioned in al-Qaida propaganda.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fertilizer Plant Explosion Leaves More than 100 Wounded in Central Texas; Fatalities Unclear (+video)

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Photo Credit: Washington Post

A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in central Texas left more than 100 people wounded and killed an unspecified number Wednesday night, officials said, as first responders searched for victims in scores of wrecked homes.

Images of the gargantuan fireball were particularly jarring, coming just two days after a terrorist attack at the finish line of the Boston marathon. Officials in Texas said it was too early to say how the fire that triggered the blast began, and offered no evidence to suggest it involved foul play.

“Right now, we have tremendous amounts of injuries,” D.L. Wilson, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety told reporters shortly after midnight in a televised news conference. “It was massive, just like Iraq, just like the Murrah building in Oklahoma,” he added, referring to the April 19, 1995, bombing of the federal building in that city.

Authorities were struggling to get a clear sense of the damage in the tiny town of West, 20 miles north of Waco, because blazes were still raging in the area. They expressed concern about the hazard ammonia billowing through the air could cause.

Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton, a Waco police spokesman told reporters during a news conference early Thursday that firefighters and law enforcement personnel who were in the vicinity of the blast are unaccounted for.

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Security Video May Show Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect; Report of Arrest Premature (+video)

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Photo Credit: Washington Post

The daunting task of sifting through thousands of images of the Boston Marathon bombing site in search of a culprit suddenly telescoped to a single video from a Lord & Taylor security camera Wednesday.

The discovery of video of a man who wore a large backpack to the finish line area and then dropped the package there raised hopes for an imminent breakthrough in the case, setting off a media frenzy and insistent statements from authorities that no arrest has been made. A Boston city official said the video is of “special interest” to investigators.

The second full day of the investigation into the attack that killed three people and injured at least 176 brought jitters, rumors and at least the hope that investigators had made important progress, though Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D) said that while the probe is “making some progress . . . it’s going to be slow, it’s going to be methodical.”

Boston’s federal courthouse, where hundreds had gathered in response to false reports of an arrest, was briefly evacuated because of a bomb threat. Officials also evacuated a Boston hospital, Brigham and Women’s, and Oklahoma City’s City Hall because of suspicious vehicles outside. No explosives were found in those cases.

In Boston, many of the injured were released from hospitals. At Brigham and Women’s, which initially treated 35 people, only 11 were still hospitalized Wednesday evening, four of them in critical condition.

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U.S. 'Deporting Saudi Person of Interest'

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Photo Credit: WND

By Joe Kovacs. An expert on terrorism says the Saudi national who was the original “person of interest” in connection with Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing is going to be deported from the U.S. next week.

The foreign student from Revere, Mass., is identified as 20-year-old Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi.

“I just learned from my own sources that he is now going to be deported on national security grounds next Tuesday, which is very unusual,” Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism told Sean Hannity of Fox News Wednesday night.

The Reuters news agency reported President Barack Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Wednesday, noting “the meeting was not on Obama’s public schedule.”

After that meeting was mentioned, Emerson told Hannity, “That’s very interesting because this is the way things are done with Saudi Arabia. You don’t arrest their citizens. You deport them, because they don’t want them to be embarrassed and that’s the way we appease them.” Read more from this story HERE.

Saudi Arabia deports 3 men for being too sexy

By Michael Blaustein. Three men were booted out of Saudi Arabia because they were deemed “too handsome” by religious authorities who worried that women would become attracted to them.

Sitting in the stands as delegates from the United Arab Emirates at the Jenadrivah Heritage & Cultural Festival in Riyad on Sunday, nothing seemed to be wrong with the men in question but that didn’t stop the mutaween, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, from charging in and hauling the men away, according to Arabic language newspaper Elaph. Read more from this story HERE.