Free Republic

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) -- The father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing claims that his son who is still on the loose is a smart and accomplished young man. Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone from the Russian city of Makhachkala on Friday after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued. "My son is a true angel," the elder Tsarnaev said. "Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to...

Family friend tells Vocativ that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mother sent a distraught message after her son was given the death penalty. With her terrorist son sentenced to death, the mother of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sent raging messages to his supporters saying the United States will burn “in the flames of an eternal and terrifying fire,” her close friend told Vocativ. “They think that they are killing us and they celebrate this, but we are the ones who will rejoice when Allah grants us the chance to behold them in the flames of an eternal and terrifying fire, an otherworldly...

The Russian warning to the United States government in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, was based on two intercepted telephone calls discussing jihad, both involving his mother, a law enforcement official said on Saturday. The Russian authorities informed the F.B.I. in March 2011 that Mr. Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who had lived in the United States for about a decade, had changed drastically, had adopted extremist views and planned to travel to Russia to meet with underground groups. The F.B.I. sent agents to interview Mr. Tsarnaev and his...

The New York Times's David Herszenhorn on Friday wrote up a bizarre new conference held by the parents of the Boston Marathon bombers in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, where they have lived for the past year: "Parents Deny Son's Guilt And Accuse U.S. of Plot." It's puzzling why Herszenhorn chose such a credulous tone to the conspiratorial rants of the bombers' mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva (The Washington Post made do with a brief mention at the very end of a related story on Friday). The parents of the two brothers accused in the bomb attack that killed three people and...