Free Republic

US officials knew about the potential danger of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, according to a soon-to-be-released Congressional report—but a spelling error led them to miss his frequent flights out to Dagestan for terror training. […] In March 2011, Russian intelligence agency FSB notified the FBI with concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Tsarnaev family, which had emigrated to Massachusetts nearly ten years earlier. In the letter, FSB included contact information, with addresses and phone numbers, for many of the members of the Tsarnaev family, including Tamerlan and his mother, and warned that Tamerlan was gaining a reputation for associating...

BOSTON (AP) — An FBI agent overheard Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev make a "statement to his detriment" when his sister visited him in prison, federal prosecutors said Friday. Prosecutors did not reveal what Tsarnaev said, but they objected to what they called an attempt by Tsarnaev's lawyers to suppress the statement.... [snip] Tsarnaev, 20, has pleaded not guilty in the terrorist attack at last year's marathon. Two pressure cooker bombs were placed near the marathon finish line, killing three people and wounding more than 260.... [snip] Tsarnaev's lawyers say the presence of the FBI agent during prison visits...

Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of orchestrating last year’s Boston Marathon bombing along with his brother Tamerlan, the Justice Department announced Thursday. “After consideration of the relevant facts, the applicable regulations and the submissions made by the defendant’s counsel, I have determined that the United States will seek the death penalty in this matter,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement. “The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision.” Authorities say the Tsarnaev brothers plotted the backpack bomb attack that killed three people and injured...

The father of a Chechen man shot to death by authorities in Florida while being questioned in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation has written to President Barack Obama asking for help finding out what happened. Abdulbaki Todashev wrote in a letter released Monday that son Ibragim Todashev knew dead marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, through boxing but had no connection to the bombing or any other crime. He said his son voluntarily went to an FBI office in Orlando to speak with agents four times before they showed up at his apartment on May 22....

Tamerlan Tsarnaev first heard the voice when he was a young man. It came to him at unexpected times, an internal rambling that he alone could hear. Alarmed, he confided to his mother that the voice “felt like two people inside of me.” As he got older, the voice became more authoritative, its bidding more insistent. Tamerlan confided in a close friend that the voice had begun to issue orders and to require him to perform certain acts, though he never told his friend specifically what those acts were. “He was torn between those two people,” said Donald Larking, 67,...

Air strike with SU-25, from chechen war SU-25 used FAB 500 (1102.31 lbs) bomb, and NURS

But they already seemed like "losers," as their successful Americanized uncle told reporters after the attack. They were out of place in the U.S., and my relationship with them developed because they needed so much basic advice about how to get by. I didn't sense impending danger in their household, but looking back, I can see now that I glimpsed a new type of threat to the U.S., one that we have only recently begun to confront.

Nearly six months after the Boston Marathon bombings, as the city continues to reel and heal, the fan base for 20-year-old suspected terrorist Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnaev is going strong. Tsarnaev supporter and New York City resident Karina said her loyalty is due to a strong belief that he is innocent — not an attraction. “I saw a lot of the teenage fan girls in the beginning, but that has diminished because we called them out pretty quickly,” said Karina, who requested her last name be withheld. “It is obvious that he’s a good looking young man,” she added.

Our dog eating Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, had this to say about the "phony" NSA spying scandal during his August 9th "press" conference: *** "As I said at the National Defense University back in May, in meeting those threats we have to strike the right balance between protecting our security and preserving our freedoms." http://www.npr.org/2013/08/09/210574114/transcript-president-obamas-news-conference *** Ladies and gentlemen, the above quote needs to be immortalized in some way. Perhaps it should be carved into the base of the Statue of Liberty or onto the side of a mountain. Maybe children should be forced to memorize it in their...

BOSTON (Reuters) - A grand jury on Thursday indicted two students from Kazakhstan on obstruction of justice charges, alleging they helped hide evidence related to the April Boston marathon bombing that killed three and injured 264, the U.S. Attorney's office for Massachusetts said. Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19, were college friends of surviving bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They are charged with removing a backpack containing fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room after the FBI released pictures of Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan in an effort to learn the names of the bombers.

One of the brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings was in possession of right-wing American literature in the run-up to the attack, BBC Panorama has learnt. Tamerlan Tsarnaev subscribed to publications espousing white supremacy and government conspiracy theories. He also had reading material on mass killings. Until now the Tsarnaev brothers were widely perceived as just self-styled radical jihadists. Panorama has spent months speaking exclusively with friends of the bombers to try to understand the roots of their radicalisation. 'Government conspiracies' The programme discovered that Tamerlan Tsarnaev possessed articles which argued that both 9/11 and the 1995 Oklahoma...

The F.B.I. has concluded that there was little its agents could have done to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings, according to law enforcement officials, rejecting criticism that it could have better monitored one of the suspects before the attack. That conclusion is based on several internal reviews that examined how the bureau handled a request from a Russian intelligence agency in 2011 to investigate whether one of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had been radicalized during his time in the United States. … Members of Congress have contended that the F.B.I. should have done a more extensive investigation of Mr. Tsarnaev...

The widow of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev has started acting more like her old self by watching movies, listening to rock music and reconnecting with her family, her relatives have said. Katherine Russell, 24, is living at her parents' home in Rhode Island with her daughter by Tsarnaev, and she is enjoying the activities once forbidden by her late husband. She has changed her name back to Katherine Russell from Karima Tsarnaeva, the name she adopted after marrying Tsarnaev, who was killed earlier this year following a police shootout.

A Massachusetts state police photographer angered by Rolling Stone magazine's latest cover of Boston boming suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has released never-before-seen photos of Tsarnaev just before he was taken into custody. Pictures taken by Sgt. Sean Murphy, and first published by Boston Magazine, show a bruised and bloody Tsarneav emerging from the backyard boat he hid in after a confrontation with authorities that left his older brother and alleged bombing accomplice dead.

Rolling Stone magazine is drawing fire for putting Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover, in a glam shot that critics say continues to blur the line between fame and infamy. The picture, which accompanies a story titled "Jahar's World," shows the accused murderer with his long, curly hair tousled and the hint of a goatee, reminiscent of the magazine's iconic shots of rock 'n' roll royalty like The Doors' Jim Morrison. The cover could send a dangerous message to Tsarnaev's warped supporters, according to one critic. "If they want to become famous, kill somebody," Northeastern University criminologist...

It’s interesting, and infuriating. We’ve already seen the rise of what Twitchy calls the “Jaharem” of admirers of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, in custody since murdering a police officer and engaging in a firefight with law enforcement, then hiding and bleeding in a boat the rest of the day until he was discovered. Now Rolling Stone offers a profile of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving brother of the duo who killed three and injured hundreds of others at the event, including an eight-year-old boy shredded by their bomb.Why not give Tsarnaev the soft focus treatment for that, huh?RS at least...

The social media post quickly picked up thousands of comments, many of them negative, criticizing Rolling Stone for the decision to feature him on the cover.

BOSTON — His arm in a cast and his face swollen, a blase-looking Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing in a seven-minute proceeding that marked his first public appearance since his capture in mid-April. As victims of the bombing looked on, Tsarnaev, 19, gave a small, lopsided smile to his sisters upon arriving in the courtroom. He appeared to have a jaw injury and there was swelling around his left eye and cheek.Then, after he leaned in toward a microphone and said, “Not guilty” over and over in a Russian accent, he was led out...

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused in the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and wounded more than 260, and the killing of a MIT police officer days later, has pleaded not guilty to 30 counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill. More on this story http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/10/surviving-boston-marathon-bombing-suspect-to-appear-in-court/

BOSTON (CBS/AP) – A small group of demonstrators showed up at Moakley Federal Courthouse in South Boston on Wednesday to show support for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev was set to appear in court for his first public hearing. He has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260. A group of about a dozen supporters cheered as the motorcade carrying Tsarnaev arrived at the courthouse. The demonstrators yelled “Justice for Jahar,” as Tsarnaev is known. One woman held a sign that said, “Free Jahar.”...