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Finally, we get the note in the boat — a month late. Do you how much media effort has been devoted to unearthing what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apparently thought was his last will and testament? But somehow, the cops held it tight until yesterday. Unconfirmed stories have circulated that in Dave Henneberry’s backyard in Watertown that Friday evening, the feds went so far as to check out the cellphones of the local cops, to make sure no one had snapped a photo of the note in the boat. No big surprises in the note. The Joker said his brother Speedbump was...

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left claiming responsibility for the April 13 attack on the Boston Marathon, reports CBS News senior correspondent John Miller. Sources tell Miller that Tsarnaev wrote the note in the boat he was hiding in as police pursued him, and as he bled from gunshot wounds sustained in an earlier shootout between police and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The note, scrawled with a pen on the interior wall of the cabin, said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims collateral damage in the same way...

TEL AVIV – There is a common threat that links the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to both the Boston Marathon bombings and the terror assault on the In Amenas gas facility in southern Algeria in January. The thread runs through al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, one of the most deadly members of the al-Qaida conglomerate. AQAP previously attempted several major attacks within the U.S. The group was the first al-Qaida member to comment on the Benghazi attack, releasing a statement arguing the assaults on the U.S. mission and nearby CIA annex were revenge for the death of...

Federal prosecutors have agreed to release a college pal of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who was locked up last week on charges he lied to FBI investigators.

After the city of Cambridge and several other cemeteries turned him down, Stefan said he is hoping Gov. Deval Patrick’s office will intervene and choose Tsarnaev’s final resting place. If not, “I’ll call the White House,” he vowed.

The family of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect killed in a shootout with police can’t find a place to bury him, even as his body is being prepared for just that purpose. An uncle of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived in Worcester, Mass., on Sunday to “prepare the body” of his nephew for burial. Ruslan Tsarni, of Mongomery Village, Md., came to the city about 40 miles west of Boston with three other men, who were not family members, and met with the director of the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors.

Lawyers for Robel Phillipos, the Cambridge native accused of covering up for marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, painted him as a “frightened and confused” teen who didn’t mean to lie to investigators in a bid to convince a judge he should be released with a GPS monitor. “This case is about a frightened and confused 19-year-old who was subjected to intense questioning and interrogation, without the benefit of counsel, and in the context of one of the worst attacks against the nation,” said Phillipos’ lawyers, Derege B. Demissie and Susan B. Church, in court papers filed yesterday, later adding, “Mr....

A Worcester funeral home director is pleading for government officials to use their influence to convince a cemetery to bury Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but so far no state or federal authorities have stepped forward to help out. “We have a body for burial that has caused a lot of controversy and we can’t continue to play this game,” said Peter Stefan, owner of the Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors. “Under normal circumstances, the government would say it’s (the funeral parlor’s) responsibility to find a place for burial, but this is not normal circumstances. This is a nightmare.”

Complete Headline: Al Qaeda magazine found on laptop of bomber's widow: Suspicion over FBI Tsarnaev's wife grows after radical Islamist files found along with traces of explosive residue throughout her homeFederal officials investigating the Boston bombings have discovered radical Islamist materials on a computer belonging to the widow of the deceased suspect, it has been revealed. Katherine Russell, 24, has repeatedly claimed through her attorney that she knew nothing about the deadly April 15 bombings allegedly set off by her late husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar. However, the discovery of al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine on Russell’s computer,...

BOSTON (CBS) – The body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is now at a funeral home in Worcester. Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors, told WBZ-TV Friday he is handling funeral arrangements for the Tsarnaev family. Stefan said his staff has experience with Muslim services, which includes washing the body and preparing it for burial. A police cruiser parked outside the Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlor Friday. “We take care of a lot of Muslim funerals here, throughout the state,” Stefan said, “and this was no different, except for the circumstances.” A burial...

Two years ago today, SEAL Team Six sent Osama bin Laden on his way to Davy Jones’ Locker — but his Islamist terror machine is anything but sinking to the depths. It remains a vicious, global threat. Since Osama’s demise, the terror group’s strength has ebbed in some areas, but flowed strongly in others. Indeed, one current estimate concludes that al Qaeda affiliates and associates (i.e., groups, cells or operatives) are active in more than 30 countries (of some 190) on four continents. Including our continent. While we don’t yet know the whole story behind the Boston bombing, just last...

WASHINGTON — The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings told F.B.I. interrogators that, as he and his brother plotted their deadly assault, they considered suicide attacks and striking on the Fourth of July, according to two law enforcement officials. But the suspect,Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, told investigators that he and his brother,Tamerlan, 26, who was killed in a shootout with the police, ultimately decided to use pressure-cooker bombs and other homemade explosive devices, the officials said. The brothers finished building the bombs in Tamerlan’s apartment in Cambridge, Mass., faster than they anticipated, and so decided to accelerate their attack to...

For seven minutes, five Dagestan rebels spoke into a video camera about killing infidels and how the “good deeds” they were doing would absolve them of “700 sins” committed during their lifetimes. Filmed by a Canadian jihadist fighter before he was killed by Russian security forces, the video offers a disturbing glimpse of the fanaticism of the rebels who may have inspired Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev does not appear in the footage, which was obtained by the National Post. But it was recorded and narrated by William Plotnikov, a Canadian whose alleged links to Tsarnaev are now under...

As the fallout from the Boston bombing continues, Americans are coming to terms with the realities of the terrorist threats we are facing in our country. Part of this is adopting a prepared mindset to meet the threats where they occur. The Chechens are here. So are Muslims from Dagestan, Albania, and Bosnia. Much has been made in the press about the more Caucasian look of the Tsarnaev brothers. But what sets the radicalized segments of these ethnic groups apart from their Middle Eastern counterparts, is not so much the racial aspects of their ethnicities, but the way they fight....

The World's Greatest Orator appeared before the press yesterday, and here are some highlights of his remarks: "This is hard stuff. . . . Maybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly. I think it's a little--as Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point. . . . Right now things are pretty dysfunctional up on Capitol Hill. . . . You seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there [in Congress] have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That's their job. ....

The U.K. Daily Mail recently claimed that a senior Saudi government official revealed to its sources that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had sent a written warning to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects accused in the Boston Marathon bombing. But now, the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C. is denying the Saudi government warned the United States about Tsarnaev, the Daily Mail reports.

New details are emerging about the religious motivations of Boston bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and their recent interest in Chechnya, which experts say has become a hub for the extremist Saudi sect of Islam known as Wahhabism. The brothers are ethnically Chechen, though Dzhokhar was born in the Russian republic of Dagestan while his deceased older brother Tamerlan was born in the neighboring Russian republic of Kalmykia. Their parents confirmed that Tamerlan visited Dagestan and Chechnya last year, but denied reports that he did so to engage in militant Islamist training. University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Professor Brian Glyn Williams,...

Breaking: Boston police take three Boston Marathon bombing suspects into custody By Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! News National Affairs Reporter By Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 10 mins ago Boston police have three additional suspects in custody in connection to the Boston Marathon bombings, the department announced Tuesday. A spokeswoman at the Boston police department directed all questions on the suspects to the FBI, which has yet to disclose their identities.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Graham tells me something that I hadn’t heard about Boston Marathon bombing. As dozens of victims were sprawled across Boylston Street, many of them in danger of death, Catholic priests came running to the scene—and were turned away. Doctors and nurses were welcome at the bombing scene. Firefighters and police officers were welcome. But Catholic priests, who might have offered the solace of the sacraments, were not. ”Catholics need not apply.” That slogan was familiar in Boston years ago, before Irish and Italian immigrants took over control of the city. Now, after decades...

NBC News is reporting that attorneys for accused Boston Marathon Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are discussing a possible deal in which federal prosecutors might consider waiving the death penalty in exchange for a “full accounting” of the attack that left three people dead and 264 people injured. Citing legal sources, correspondent Pete Williams reported on “NBC Nightly News” that prosecutors and lawyers for Tsarnaev “have begun very early discussions about a possible deal in which he could avoid the death penalty in return for a full accounting to the FBI of what happened and why as investigators continue working to...