Boston Bombing Suspects Inspired by Muslim Cleric | Newsmax

Anwar al-Awlaki

The younger of the two brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombings has said  that the pair were inspired by watching online videos of Anwar al-Awlaki, an  American citizen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike.
Dzhokhar  Tsarnaev, 19, told investigators that he and his older brother Tamerlan were  motivated in part by the radical Muslim cleric who was killed by the U.S. in  Yemen on September 30, 2011, reports The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. government officials  said that al-Awlaki was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved  in planning terrorist operations for al-Qaida.  He reportedly played a role in  the radicalization of the so-called underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab  of Nigeria, who pleaded guilty of trying to blow up an American-bound airplane  on Christmas Day, 2009.
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Al-Awlaki had  many of his videos posted on YouTube until they were removed following a request  from Congress in November 2010. According to CNN, however, the Dagestan wing of  the Caucasus Emirate, a jihadist group fighting to create an Islamic state in  the region, also posted videos of al-Awlaki.
The Tsarnaev brothers, of  Chechen origin, spent much of their childhood in Dagestan before emigrating to  the U.S. with their family in the early 2000s. Investigators, however, have  reportedly not found evidence of direct contact between the Tsarnaev brothers  and the cleric.
They are still trying to determine whether the brothers  carried out their alleged attack on their own or had help from others.  Of  particular interest is a six month trip that Tamerlan made to Russia in 2012.  That came after Russian law enforcement officials told their American  counterparts that they suspected him of having become radicalized.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police on April 18, three  days after the bombings, while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was badly wounded in the  exchange of gunfire, was captured the next day. He is currently in a prison  hospital at Fort Devens, Mass.
Tsarnaev told interrogators that he and  his older brother had considered carrying out an attack on July 4 but instead  chose April 15, Patriots’ Day in Mass., because the bombs were ready earlier  than expected, according to several reports.
He said the brothers built  their pressure-cooker bombs in the older brother’s apartment in Cambridge,  Mass., which he shared with his wife, Katherine Russell, and their child.
Female DNA and fingerprints found on a bomb fragment recovered from the  attacks do not match the widow, reports CBS News. The FBI collected DNA and hair  samples from Russell at her parents’ home in North Kingstown, Rhode Island on  Monday.
Russell is not a suspect and has not been charged, but  investigators want to question her further to find out what, if anything, she  knew about her husband’s plans.
On Wednesday, prosecutors charged two  19-year-old college friends of the younger brother, Dias Kadyrbayev and Axamat  Tazhayakov, both from Kazakhstan, with helping to hide evidence of the bombs by  discarding a backpack containing gutted fireworks.  They also charged a third  friend, 19-year-old Robel Phillipos, with lying to prosecutors. None of the  three has entered a plea.
According to an affidavit unsealed Wednesday,   after seeing the widely released surveillance video of the suspects,  Kadyrbayev  sent his friend a text saying that he resembled one of them,  to which Tsarnaev  responded, “LoL, you better not text me.”
He also texted Kadyrbayev to  say “Come to my room and take whatever you want,” said the affidavit, noting  “Kadyrbayev knew when he saw the empty fireworks that Tsarnaev was involved in  the marathon bombing. Kadyrbayev decided to remove the backpack from the room in  order to help his friend Tsarnaev avoid trouble.”

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BBC News – First woman put on FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorist’ list

There are rewards totalling $2m for the capture of Joanne Chesimard

A fugitive convicted killer has become the first woman to be put on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists”.

Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army also known as Assata Shakur, fled to Cuba in 1979 after escaping from a prison where she was serving a life sentence for murder.

She is listed as a domestic terrorist on the FBI website, although she is not considered to pose a new threat.

A fugitive convicted killer has become the first woman to be put on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists”.

Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army also known as Assata Shakur, fled to Cuba in 1979 after escaping from a prison where she was serving a life sentence for murder.

She is listed as a domestic terrorist on the FBI website, although she is not considered to pose a new threat.

There are rewards totalling $2m (£1.3m) for information leading to her capture.

Chesimard is thought still to be living in Cuba, which does not have an extradition treaty with the US and is believed to be providing shelter to an estimated 70 people sought by the US authorities.

However, in April the Cuban authorities returned a Florida couple who were accused of kidnapping their two young sons after losing a custody battle with the boys’ grandparents.

‘Flaunts her freedom’

Chesimard was a leader of the Black Liberation Army, which the FBI described as a revolutionary extremist organisation responsible for killing more than a dozen US police officers in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1973, she and two accomplices were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by two troopers from the New Jersey State Police. They then opened fire on the troopers, wounding one and killing the other “execution-style” at point-blank range, according to the FBI. One of Chesimard’s accomplices died in the shootout; the other remains in jail.

In 1977, Chesimard was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of first degree murder, assault and battery of a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to kill, illegal possession of a weapon, and armed robbery.

However, two years later she broke out of the Clinton Correctional Facility in New Jersey with the help of armed members of the Black Liberation Army, They drove a van into the prison and then took her out.

Chesimard spent the next few years living in safe houses in the US before surfacing in Cuba in 1984, New Jersey State Police said.

“Of those responsible, one is dead, one is in jail, and one was broken out of jail and remains free in Cuba,” said NJSP Superintendent Col Rick Fuentes. “Joanne Chesimard… flaunts her freedom in the face of this horrific crime”.

Chesimard had been granted political asylum in Cuba, and given “the pulpit to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilise against the US by any means necessary”, Col Fuentes added.

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $1m (640,000) for information leading to her capture, while the state of New Jersey is separately offering another $1m.

FBI agent Aaron Ford said that the agency would “pursue justice, no matter how long it takes”.

 

via BBC News – First woman put on FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorist’ list.