April 19, 2013
BOSTON/WATERTOWN (MASSACHUSETTS): The two suspects in the deadly Boston marathon bombings, one of whom was killed in a shootout with police overnight, are brothers of Chechen origin, NBC News reported on Friday.
April 19, 2013
BOSTON/WATERTOWN (MASSACHUSETTS): The two suspects in the deadly Boston marathon bombings, one of whom was killed in a shootout with police overnight, are brothers of Chechen origin, NBC News reported on Friday.
The suspect still at large has been identified as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the US network said, adding the two men were legal permanent residents of the United States.
Earlier, thousands of heavily armed police went door-to-door through a Massachusetts town on Friday in an unprecedented massive hunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Authorities halted all public bus and train services in the Boston region and told hundreds of thousands of people in several towns around Watertown to stay home in a bid to isolate the suspect.
Fleets of buses were sent to Watertown to ferry out nervous inhabitants. Those who stay were ordered to remain in their homes and only answer the door if they were sure it was a police officer.
More than 9,000 police, many armed with shotguns and automatic rifles, were sent to the town to find Suspect Two, one of two young men suspected of having carried out the bomb attack on Monday in which three people died and 180 were injured.
The hunt was concentrated on about 1.5 square miles (3.8 square kilometers) of Watertown, a quiet suburb of 35,000 people.
Earlier, police killed one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects in a shootout and pursued a chaotic street-to-street manhunt for his accomplice, officials said.
Several Boston suburbs were put under effective lockdown and public transport was suspended throughout the region as police chased an "armed and dangerous … terrorist … who has come here to kill people."
The two men — who were dubbed "Suspect One" and "Suspect Two" by the FBI — led police special forces on a violent cavalcade that left inhabitants of towns around Boston cowering in their homes as gunfire and explosions erupted through the night.
One police officer was killed and another wounded in the operation, Boston police commissioner Ed Davis said. Davis also confirmed that Suspect One had been killed.
The man, whose identity has not been released, died in the hospital after being hit with bullets and injured by an explosion, a doctor at Beth Israel hospital told reporters.
Police told inhabitants of Watertown and nearby towns to stay home.
The governor also suspended all public transit services through the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
The surviving fugitive was "armed and dangerous," Davis said. "We believe this to be a terrorist, we believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people," the police chief told reporters.
Police said the first suspect had explosives on his body, and there were fears the second suspect still at large was also strapped with bombs.
The suspects first tried to rob a convenience store in Cambridge, across the river from Boston, Davis said.
They then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where one campus police officer was shot several times and died, the commissioner added. The pair then hijacked a Mercedes car and eventually let the driver out in Watertown, which is close to MIT, Davis added.
The chase went on through Watertown where the two were seen throwing explosives out of the car, local media said, citing police reports. Blasts and gunfire were heard in several districts.
During a shooutout, one wanted man was hit and died later in hospital, Davis said. Another police officer was also wounded. The second suspect, who has been shown in pictures wearing a white baseball cap, escaped.
MIT students were kept in a lockdown for three hours after the shooting on campus. Police with rifles flooded the streets, and search helicopters patrolled the skies.
MIT, one of the world's top universities, is in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston where the double bomb attack was staged on Monday in the worst militant attack on the United States since the September 11 atrocities in 2001. Authorities cancelled classes on Friday, in the wake of the incident.
Hours before the manhunt, the FBI released pictures and video of the two suspects, appealing for help to identify the pair who were carrying large backpacks.
Both appeared to be young men, one dressed in a white baseball cap and the other in a black cap. The FBI gave no details of their identities or origin, naming them only as Suspect One and Suspect Two.
Two bombs were placed around the marathon finish line on Monday, spraying nails, ball bearings and other metal fragments into massed spectators, many of whom suffered horrific injuries.
The men are seen in the video walking calmly, one a few paces behind the other, weaving between crowds on Boston's Boylston Street where the race finished.
President Barack Obama vowed to the people of Boston Thursday that the "evil" bombers would be brought to justice.
At a special service at Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama vowed: "Yes, we will find you, and yes, you will face justice."
"We will find you, we will hold you accountable," he told a congregation of 2,000, including relatives of the dead, survivors of the blasts, rescuers and city leaders.
"If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us," Obama said, then "it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it."
Courtesy: AFP
