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FBI agents interviewed one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings two years ago, but found no connection with terror groups.

Agents interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of a foreign government that suspected he might have ties to extremist groups, the FBI said Friday.

"The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer," the FBI said, "and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country's region to join unspecified underground groups."

An FBI official declined to name the foreign government, but said the FBI took a number of investigative steps to check on the request, including looking at his travel history, checking databases for derogatory information and searching for Web postings. More at http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/19/us/boston-suspects-no-links/index.html?h
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Despite being seriously wounded and heavily sedated, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is answering brief questions from authorities by nodding his head, a source with first-hand knowledge of the investigation told CNN Monday.

Authorities are asking Dzhokhar Tsarnaev whether there are more bombs, explosives caches or weapons, and whether anyone was helping him and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the source said.

Investigators are going into Tsarnaev's room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston every few hours to ask questions in the presence of doctors, the source said.

It wasn't immediately clear what information he may be communicating to investigators.
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, meanwhile, remains in serious but stable condition, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts. A federal law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN the younger brother has a gunshot wound to his neck, and he had a tube down his throat to help him breathe.

It's unclear whether Tsarnaev was wounded during his capture or in the earlier shootout with police that left his older brother dead, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Tamerlan Tsarnaev apparently became increasingly radical in the past three or four years, according to an analysis of his social media accounts and the recollections of family members. But so far, there has been no evidence of active association with international jihadist groups.

In August 2012, soon after returning from a visit to Russia, the elder Tsarnaev brother created a YouTube channel with links to a number of videos. Two videos under a category labeled "Terrorists" were deleted. It's not clear when or by whom.

In January, Tamerlan Tsarnaev disrupted a service at the Islamic Society of Boston's mosque in Cambridge, Massachusets, a board member told CNN's Brian Todd.

Tsarnaev was reacting to a speaker who likened the Muslim Prophet Mohammed to Martin Luther King Jr., the board member said. He calmed after worshippers spoke with him, and returned often for pre-dawn prayers on Fridays, the board member said.

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Also on Monday, the one-week anniversary of the Boston attacks, thousands of runners across the country will pound the pavement in a show of unity and support for the victims and their families.

At least 80 cities are participating in a "Run for Boston in Your City" campaign called #BostonStrong, organizer Brian Kelley said.

The global campaign is "a run for those that were unable to finish, a run for those that may never run again" and "a run for us to try and make sense of the tragedy that has forever changed something we love."

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The first image the nation saw of the two brothers may serve as more than a pivotal clue to investigators in the Boston Marathon bombings. It is, perhaps, a snapshot of their relationship: One leads, the other follows.

That's how some friends remember the Tsarnaev brothers: At 26, Tamerlan was seven years older than his brother Dzhokhar, who followed his big brother around like a puppy.

And with their father in Russia, the older brother may have become a father figure to the 19-year-old these past few months. At 6-feet-3, Tamerlan was, by many accounts, an intimidating presence with increasingly strong convictions about society and religion in recent years.

But the picture that is emerging of the now infamous brothers is also fuzzy -- just like the surveillance video.

An investigator who studied their video images after the bombings said the two brothers "acted differently than everyone else" -- they stuck around and watched the carnage unfold, and walked away "pretty casually."

Aquaintances of the brothers, now dredging their memories, find themselves short on clues. Many say both were likable and well-loved in their neighborhood, not loners driven away by society.
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As the oldest of four, Tamerlan seemed to see it as his duty to make sure his siblings didn't forget their Chechen roots. He was about 16 when the family arrived in America.

One sister had an arranged marriage awaiting her in Chechnya, Vasquez said, and "he felt the responsibility to make sure she stayed in line with that." That sister enjoyed the freedom of America, and Tamerlan had "an issue with that." He was like a shadow, always lurking in her presence.

"There was pressure to stick to your ways, your religion, your culture -- to respect that," said Vasquez.

But he saw no seeds of terror.

"He was a big friendly giant. ... There was nothing weird about him, nothing alarming," Vasquez said. "He never went around and tried to force his views on anyone."

Clearly, if the allegations against the brothers are true, something changed. Vasquez thinks someone must have "got in his (Tamerlan's) ear and he passed that along probably to whoever he could recruit" -- in this case, he believes, the younger brother.

"In what I've seen of their personalities, the brain behind this is the older brother," Vasquez said. "When it comes to the two of them, he would lead and the little brother followed."

It's not unusual for immigrants here to return to their homeland after high school. In fact, it's almost a rite of passage. Residents don't think twice when a neighbor travels to their country of origin.

Yet it is on visits back home in recent years, investigators say, that Tamerlan became radicalized. Shortly after returning from a six-month trip last year, he uploaded several videos to his YouTube account, including one of a well-known jihadist.
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The dad was an amateur boxer in Chechnya and wanted his oldest son to get even better training. Tamerlan was a physical specimen: 6-foot-3 and 196 pounds. He had a long reach, great quickness, tenacity and confidence -- the perfect combination of a young Muhammad Ali.

He wouldn't just knock out his opponents; he would annihilate them. "When he threw a punch, he was always right on the money, right on the target," McCarthy said. "Nobody could touch him."

After winning one fight in January 2004, the rising sensation told the Lowell Sun newspaper that he grew up in Grozny, Chechnya, and moved with his family to the United States the year before in hopes of starting a new life.

"I like the USA," Tamerlan said. "America has a lot of jobs. That's something Russia doesn't have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to work."

McCarthy ranks him as one of the best fighters he's ever trained. He won the open class heavyweight division for the New England Golden Gloves. The kid could've taken a gold medal at the Olympics, he said, but his immigration status prevented him from trying out for the U.S. Olympic team.

At the gym, the younger brother, then just 10, would tag along and do calisthenics with Tamerlan. "He was a cute little kid," McCarthy said.

He recalled registering Tamerlan at the Golden Gloves. "While he was waiting in line, he saw a piano and was playing classical music like it was Symphony Hall," McCarthy said. "Everybody in USA Boxing heard it, and they went in there and they were amazed."

Tamerlan switched to a different gym after two years. They didn't have a dispute, McCarthy said. It's just the way it goes in the rolling stone life of boxing. The kids come and go.

Yet Tamerlan didn't give up his dream. He registered again with USA Boxing from 2008-2010, but he never regained his undefeated form.

In 2009, his uncle Ruslan Tsarni had a falling out with Tamerlan. "I got into really a state of shock from changes I heard -- I wouldn't say I saw -- I heard from Tamerlan," he told CNN.

The uncle recalled a phone conversation in which Tamerlan called him an "infidel." The young man also told his uncle he was not concerned about work or studies because God had a plan for him.

Soon, Vasquez said, he vanished from his neighborhood. "I wonder what happened in that time we stopped seeing him around."

If Tamerlan was the reserved one, Dzhokhar -- known as "Jahar" -- was the outgoing kid, always quick with a joke. That was one of his goals, his friends say, to make them laugh. The only time they'd seen him mad was if he lost a wrestling match. Even that was rare. He was an all-star, 135-pound wrestler who placed in the state finals.

One friend remembered seeing how happy Dzhokhar was at the TD Bank Garden arena last year when he became an American citizen. It was an especially patriotic day for those in attendance because the ceremony was held on September 11, 2012, a date that seems tragically odd in retrospect.

"Right now, it's like a big puzzle and we're trying to put pieces together," said one family friend who asked not to be identified.

Dzhokhar was kind-hearted, too. When he wasn't wrestling in high school, he volunteered at an after-school program to help kids with autism and Down syndrome.

"He was a funny comical guy. He had me laughing a lot," said Peter Tenzin, who co-captained the wrestling team with Dzhokhar. "After wrestling practice, he would rather go down and spend time with kids with learning disabilities than relax and go home."

The city awarded Dzhokhar a $2,500 scholarship, and he assimilated well with students at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where he was studying engineering.

Like so many in the family's neighborhood, Tenzin faults the older brother -- saying he likely brainwashed the friend they knew. "All I can say is I think his brother put him up to it," Tenzin said. "There's no way in heck that he would do it. Mentally, he's just not that kind of guy."

"He loved his brother and looked up to him, and that's why I think (Tamerlan) put him up to this."

Though similar stories are shared around the neighborhood, another picture of Dzhokhar has emerged in the last two days: of a young man who partied on campus after the bombings and allegedly joined his brother in gunning down a cop, carjacking a man in Cambridge, then engaging in a gun battle with Watertown police complete with pipebombs and an explosive device like the ones that wreaked mayhem at the marathon.

"To see two brothers, both carrying leadership traits, flip the switch and jump into something so evil is astonishing," said Luis Vasquez. "It's not what we remember of them."

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