The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect killed Friday in a shootout with police, travelled to Russia in 2012, he may have done so under an alias. 
 
 Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s six-month stay in Russia last year “becomes extremely important” as a key to the investigation of the Boston bombings, Rogers told NBC’s David Gregory. His visit to Russia “would lead one to believe that that’s probably where he got that final radicalization to push him to commit acts of violence and where he may have received training” in terrorist techniques. Rogers, a former FBI agent, said the FBI had questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev after being given information from a foreign intelligence service “that they were concerned about his possible radicalization.” 
 
 NBC's Adrienne Mong reports from Dagestan with more on what authorities are looking at relating to a trip that Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev recently took to Russia. 
 
 (That foreign intelligence service is widely thought to be Russia’s.) 
 
 The FBI, Rogers said, “did their due diligence and did a very thorough job” of investigating Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but when the FBI asked for more help from that foreign intelligence service, it got no further cooperation. 
 
 Rogers praised the FBI’s handing of Tamerlan Tsarnaev as “very prudent and very thorough” – and pointed out that the FBI questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev before his sojourn in Russia. 
 
 But appearing on CNN's State of the Union Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., said Tamerlan Tsarnaev is the kind of person "you don’t want to let out of your sight,” and that it was a mistake for federal authorities to have lost track of him. 
 
 “Either our laws are insufficient or the FBI failed, but we’re at war with radical Islamists and we need to up our game,” the South Carolina Republican told CNN. 
 
 The Tsarnaev family were ethnic Chechens, an embattled Islamic nationality in Russia. They were granted legal permanent residence in the United States in 2007. 
 
 Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s younger brother who was captured Friday night and is being treated in a Boston hospital, became a naturalized American citizen last year. 
 
 Because the Boston marathon bombing suspect is an American citizenp, he cannot be tried as an enemy combatant. A panel of national security experts discusses what lies ahead for the investigation. 
 
 Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said on Fox News Sunday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in serious condition and is “in no condition to be interrogated at this time.” 
 
 Scholars have for years pointed to ties between Chechen separatist fighters in Russia and al Qaida and the global jihadist movement. 
 
 The biggest questions for investigators now, said NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams , are why Tamerlan Tsarnaev apparently turned to jihadist views and “where did he get his expertise in explosives? Where did he practice them? It seems really unlikely that these two bombs successfully were detonated without some practice runs. Where did he learn to do that? Where did he practice it?” 
 
 Michael Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and an NBC News National Security Analyst, said it is not atypical for a foreign-born Muslim who has lived in the United States for years to become radicalized at some point and then engage in a terrorist plot. He cited the example of Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born naturalized U.S. citizen who confessed to a plot to bomb Times Square in New York City in 2010. 
 
 Asked whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should receive the Miranda warning that he has a right to remain silent before authorities begin to question him, Rogers said, “He’s a citizen of the United States and that brings all of the protections of the U.S. Constitution. Under the public safety exception, however, I do believe that the FBI has a period of time to try to determine what threats there are today – we don’t know if there’s other (explosive) devices, we don’t know if there’s other people (involved in the plot). I think Mirandizing him up front would be a horrible idea. Now it’s my understanding that that’s not going to happen. I’ve had conversations with the FBI….” 
 
 He added, “We don’t need his confession up front. We need the information that he has to make America is safe.” 
 
 In a joint statement issued Saturday, three Republican senators, Graham, John McCain of Arizona, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, joined by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the Boston bombing suspect should not be given Miranda warnings. He “clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status. We do not want this suspect to remain silent,” they said. 
 
 “We are encouraged our High Value Detainee Interrogation Team (HIG) is now involved and working to gather intelligence about how these terrible acts were committed and possibility of future attacks,” they said, adding that the decision by the Obama administration to not immediately read him the Miranda warning “was sound and in our national security interests. However, we have concerns that limiting this investigation to 48 hours and exclusively relying on the public safety exception to Miranda, could very well be a national security mistake. It could severely limit our ability to gather critical information about future attacks from this suspect.” 
 
 Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed with that assessment, saying “I am disappointed that it appears this administration is once again relying on Miranda's public safety exception to gather intelligence which only allows at best a 48-hour waiting period that may expire since the suspect has been critically wounded.” ||||| WASHINGTON -- Five days before two bombs tore through crowds at the Boston Marathon, an intelligence report identified the finish line of the race as an "area of increased vulnerability" and warned Boston police that extremists may use "small scale bombings" to attack spectators and runners at the event. 
 
 The 18-page report was written by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, a command center funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security that helps disseminate intelligence information to local police and first responders. 
 
 The "joint special event assessment" is dated April 10. It notes that at the time there was "no credible, specific information indicating an imminent threat" to the race. 
 
 FULL COVERAGE: Boston Marathon attack 
 
 "The FBI has not identified any specific lone offender or extremist group who pose a threat to the Boston marathon," the report reads. 
 
 Two officials read parts of the report to a Washington Bureau reporter. 
 
 Since the blasts, the FBI has acknowledged that agents had interviewed one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in 2011 but determined that he did not pose a threat. Customs agents were aware that Tsarnaev had traveled to Russia in 2012, but decided that he didn't require additional questioning when he returned to the U.S. later that year. 
 
 What was known to the FBI and other agencies before the Boston bombings was being examined by the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday in the first of a series of hearings investigating the attacks. 
 
 Top police officials in Boston testified to the panel that the FBI never shared with local law enforcement agencies that Tsarnaev had visited Dagestan and that FBI and Russian officials were concerned he and possibly his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, might become radicalized extremists. 
 
 PHOTOS: Grief, comfort at Boston memorials 
 
 “We would have liked to have known,” said Edward F. Davis III, commissioner of the Boston Police Department. But, he said, “we were not aware of the two brothers, we were not aware of their activities.” 
 
 In fact, Davis testified, it was more than three days after the April 15 bombing, after Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout and Dzhokhar was on the run, before he learned about the Tsarnaevs. 
 
 “We didn’t look at the brothers until after the shootout,” he said. 
 
 But he said he was uncertain what his local intelligence officers would have made of Tamerlan’s 2011 trip to Dagestan, noting that the FBI interviewed him but found nothing suspicious and that Russian officials did not tell the FBI why they were interested in him. 
 
 “We would certainly have looked at the information,” Davis said. “We would certainly have talked to the individual.” But, he added, “I can’t say I would have come to a different conclusion” than the FBI. 
 
 PHOTOS: Explosions at Boston Marathon 
 
 Kurt N. Schwartz, Massachusetts undersecretary for homeland security, added that “at no time were we told about the brothers.” 
 
 Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, at one time chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said that if the FBI had shared the information on the Tsarnaevs, it “could have prevented all this from happening,” referring to the three killed and 260 injured at the marathon. 
 
 Local communities, he said, “are going to be your first line of defense. So I’d say the fact that neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security notified the local members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force is really a serious and aggravating omission. 
 
 “Nobody bats 1,000 percent, it's true,” he said. “How do you explain it? People are imperfect.” 
 
 House Homeland Security Committee member Peter King (R-N.Y.) agreed, recalling that FBI officials also never told the New York Police Department that they were aware of an unfolding plot to bomb Times Square before an arrest was made there. 
 
 “The failure to share information is absolutely indefensible,” King said. 
 
 PHOTOS: Bombings splashed across nation's front pages 
 
 [Updated, 10:49 a.m. PDT May 9: Police Commissioner Davis said his department did not realize that the bombers were Russian immigrants until early on the morning of April 19, after Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was “processed” by the FBI. At that point, he said, federal agents advised local officials about their earlier investigation of the older brother on behalf of their Russian counterparts. 
 
 “All this has to be reviewed,” Davis said about why his department was kept in the dark about the Tsarnaev brothers. “All that has to be looked at very closely, and I guess in hindsight if you can connect all the dots during that first interview, there might have been an open case and we would all have known about it.” 
 
 He added, “clearly we can and must do more” in having various law enforcement agencies work together – a major shortcoming that was attributed to how the Sept. 11 hijackers escaped detection in this country. 
 
 TRANSCRIPT: Dzhokar’s bedside hearing 
 
 Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “my fear is that the Boston bombers succeeded because our system failed. We must and can do better.” 
 
 He added, “The idea that the feds have this information and it’s not shared with the state and locals defies why we created the Homeland Security Department in the first place.” 
 
 Davis said of the Tsarnaev brothers, “These criminals are reprehensible deviants, nothing more.” He added, “These terrorists tried to break us. What they accomplished was exactly the opposite.”] 
 
 PHOTOS: Boston bombing suspects 
 
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 Brian.Bennett@latimes.com 
 
 Richard.Serrano@latimes.com ||||| Image caption The scene of the blasts has been cleaned and handed back to the city 
 
 US security officials have been questioned by Congress over whether they mishandled information about the Boston bomb suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. 
 
 The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating whether the FBI failed to act on Russian concerns that Tsarnaev was becoming radicalised. 
 
 Tsarnaev was questioned in 2011 amid claims he had adopted radical Islam. 
 
 At a closed hearing, senators said steps could be taken to improve information sharing between agencies. 
 
 Tsarnaev was killed in a manhunt after the attacks on 15 April. His brother Dzhokhar, was wounded but survived, and has been charged over the bombings. 
 
 The Beth Israel Deaconess hospital in Massachusetts said at noon on Tuesday that the surviving brother's condition had improved from "serious" to "fair", according to the US Attorney's Office in Boston. 
 
 'Serious problems' 
 
 The Tsarnaev brothers had origins in the troubled, predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. They had been living in the US for about a decade at the time of the attack. 
 
 Questions for the FBI Why was no further action taken after the 2011 investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev? 
 
 Why was he not identified as a threat based on links to radical websites? 
 
 Why were the authorities unaware of his visit to Russia in 2012? Q&A: Possible FBI failings 
 
 Members of Congress want to know why no further action was taken after Tamerlan Tsarnaev was investigated in 2011 at the request of the Russian government. 
 
 In 2012 he travelled to Russia, and spent six months in Dagestan, another mainly Muslim Russian republic bordering Chechnya. During the visit, he also reportedly spent two days in Chechnya itself. 
 
 Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had questioned why the FBI was unable to identify him as a threat based on his alleged links to radical websites. 
 
 He called for better co-operation with Russia and the amendment of privacy laws to allow closer scrutiny of suspects' internet activity. 
 
 Speaking after the Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington, Republican Senator Susan Collins said there appeared to be "serious problems with sharing information, including critical investigative information ... not only among agencies but also within the same agency in one case", the Associated Press reports. 
 
 The vice-chairman of the committee, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, said he could not see "anybody yet that dropped the ball", but that he was still seeking information on whether information was properly shared. 
 
 "If it wasn't, we've got to fix this," AP quoted him as saying. 
 
 The FBI has defended itself, saying in a statement on Friday that it had run checks on the suspect but found no evidence of terrorist activity. 
 
 It said a request to Russia for further information to justify more rigorous checks went unanswered, and an interview by agents with Tsarnaev and his family also revealed nothing suspicious. 
 
 In a separate hearing on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the FBI had been aware of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia, contradicting Senator Graham's allegation that the trip had been overlooked because his name had been misspelled in travel documents. 
 
 'Internet-devised attack' 
 
 The twin bombs which exploded near the finishing line of the marathon killed three people and injured more than 200, many of them seriously. 
 
 On Tuesday, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced that a compensation fund for victims of the attack had received $20m (£13.2m) in the week since it was launched, with donations streaming in from Boston and across the world. 
 
 On Monday, a 10-page criminal complaint was filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev during a court hearing around his hospital bed. 
 
 Federal prosecutors have charged him with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death. He could be sentenced to death if convicted on either count. 
 
 According to a transcript of the hearing, he managed to speak once despite a gunshot wound to his throat sustained during his capture. 
 
 Mr Tsarnaev said the word "no" when asked if he could afford a lawyer. Otherwise he nodded in response to Judge Marianne Bowler's questions from his bed at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. 
 
 The next hearing in his case has been scheduled for the end of May. 
 
 The complaint seeks to locate both suspects at the scene of the bombing and then pieces together the operation to intercept them three days later, as they allegedly drove a hijacked car near the city, hours after images of their faces were broadcast by the media. 
 
 No mention is made of their possible reasons for attacking the marathon. 
 
 Anonymous officials have told US media that 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said he and his brother had planned the attack themselves without help from foreign militants. 
 
 Media caption Witness describes watching Boston gun battle from his window 
 
 The officials say his written answers from his hospital bed to investigators' questions lead them to believe that the pair were motivated by jihadist ideology and that they devised the bombings using the internet. 
 
 However, the sources also said the interviews were preliminary and they must verify the defendant's responses. 
 
 Lawyers for Katherine Russell, the widow of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, said that their client was doing everything she could to assist authorities. 
 
 She is "trying to come to terms with these events", her lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday, without saying whether she had been questioned by investigators. 
 
 "The report of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law came as an absolute shock to them all."
– As the Boston Marathon bombing investigation continues, the FBI is really zeroing in on dead suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev's six-month trip to Russia last year, the New York Times reports. The elder of the Tsarnaev brothers visited two predominantly Muslim republics in the country's north Caucasus region—Chechnya and Dagestan—both of which are home to strong militant separatist movements. Russia had warned the FBI that Tsarnaev was a "follower of radical Islam" back in 2011, but law enforcement officials did not deem him a security risk; now some members of Congress are unhappy at the way the tip was handled in advance of Tsarnaev's overseas trip, considering he may have had connections to extremist groups in the area. It was after that trip that he started posting jihadist videos. As federal investigators rush to review the trip (which Tsarnaev's father says was simply to renew his son's Russian passport) and any extremists Tsarnaev may have connected with in Russia, one former senior FBI official calls it "a key thread for investigators and the intelligence community to pull on." But at the time, the FBI never followed up on Tsarnaev after he returned to the US, because it did not have the legal authority to do so after uncovering nothing of note in its initial investigation. The FBI investigation did, however, prevent Tsarnaev from becoming a US citizen; the Department of Homeland Security opted to hold his petition for further review. Sources tell Fox News that investigators are looking into possible connections between Tsarnaev and the Caucasus Emirate, a separatist and extremist Islamic group whose Chechen leader is known as "Russia's Osama bin Laden." And today on Meet the Press, Rep. Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tsarnaev may have made the Russia trip under an alias.