Boston Marathon bombs: manhunt for surviving suspect "At that time, explosive devices were reportedly thrown from the car by the suspects," said the statement, adding that the brothers and the pursuing officers "exchanged gunfire in the area of Dexter and Laurel streets." One policeman was "seriously injured" and taken to hospital. One of the suspects, later named as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was then killed in the firefight. During this battle, the two suspects not only opened fire with automatic weapons but also threw makeshift bombs. A spokesman for Beth Israel Hospital in Boston said the body of a man, later identified as the elder Tsarnaev brother, arrived at about 1.35 am local time. As well as carrying bullet wounds, the corpse had also suffered blast injuries, consistent with explosives. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev survived the gun battle and managed to escape. Police have described him as "armed and highly dangerous," warning the public against approaching him. As the search continues, the entire Boston area has been paralysed, with shops, businesses, offices and schools all closing. Public transport has come to a halt, people have been urged to stay at home and the airspace above the city is closed. Police fear that Tsarnaev may have explosives attached to his body. The brothers are believed to have entered the US legally and lived there for about a decade. Chechens have waged a long struggle against Russian control of their homeland. This has changed from being a guerrilla insurgency to a campaign of bomb attacks against mainly Russian targets. The bloodiest incident of recent years occurred in January 2011 when a bomb in Domodedovo airport in Moscow killed at least 31 people. Al-Qaeda and other violent Islamists also portray the Chechen struggle as being part of the wider clash between Islam and the West, led by the US.