One less jihadi on the street tonight. “Police arrest second suspect in Boston bombings,” from the Times of Israel, April 20:
WATERTOWN, Mass. “” Boston Police confirmed Friday night that the second suspect in Monday”s Boston bombings was arrested after a tense standoff and a daylong manhunt that shut the metropolitan area down.
Gunfire erupted Friday night amid the manhunt for the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, and police in armored vehicles and tactical gear rushed into a Boston suburb in a possible break in the case.
The suspected bomber, identified by law-enforcement officials as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, MA, was cornered in a boat in a backyard in Watertown.
The burst of activity in Watertown came at the end of a tense day in and around Boston, and less than an hour after police announced that they were scaling back the hunt because they had come up empty-handed after an all-day search that sent thousands of SWAT team officers into the streets and paralyzed the metropolitan area.
The night before, two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight, and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large.
Fox News reported that the police had zeroed in on the suspect’s house, and that shots were heard several times. Correspondents could not confirm if live fire or rubber bullets were heard, as the Boston suburb of Watertown remained on lockdown during the standoff. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on Friday evening ended the stay-at-home advisory, but warned residents to “remain vigilant.” Public transportation resumed ordinary service.
State Police Superintendent Col. Timothy Alben said Tsarnaev fled the scene of the shooting on foot and called on the suspect to turn himself in.
National Guard helicopters and bomb squads also landed near the scene of the standoff to help SWAT teams in their search for the suspect. Police were scouring the Watertown neighborhood, going door to door, and said they were constantly responding to new leads in their effort to find the suspect.
Authorities had interrogated the brothers” uncle in Maryland “” who called on his nephew to turn himself in. The suspect’s sister, who reportedly lives in the town of West New York in New Jersey, was also being questioned by investigators. Officials believe the suspect has a second sister in the US.
News crews, perched outside the area that was blocked off by police, said they still weren’t sure if the suspect had been caught or not. Also, a bullet-ridden vehicle that authorities believe the brothers were driving when they shot the MIT officer was being examined for further clues.
The suspects were identified to The Associated Press as coming from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars.
Two students who were classmates of the younger Tsarnaev described him as a quiet, normal “good” kid to Fox News.
A man who was held up by the brothers early Friday morning told The Washington Post that the two men had bragged to him that they were the Boston Marathon Bombers. Police believe the brothers held up the man either right before or right after killing the MIT officer, and that their stops at several ATMs with that man provided them with a critical piece of information in their pursuit.
His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police Friday morning. During the intense fight, Dzhokhar managed to escape. Police said the two brothers threw I.E.D.”s at them, adding that security officials hadn’t called in professional units to dismantle what they believed were home-made explosive devices yet, because they were focusing on finding Tsarnaev first.
Police then said at a press conference that the I.E.D.”s would be exploded shortly. They have since brought in specialized units and performed a “controlled explosion” on the I.E.D.”s to ensure the safety of the officers.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was 26-years-old and was said to have been the mastermind behind the operation. He had been an amateur boxer and was hopeful of making it to the Olympics….
Instead, he opted for the 72 virgins.