Video of horrifying cargo plane crash at Bagram airfield that killed seven

Mother of Boston bomber is a "person of interest." in radicalization of her sons.

The mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects is a "person of interest" to federal authorities seeking to learn who radicalized one or both of her sons, according to lawmakers, and a separate report said she was on a federal terrorism database some 18 months before the attack.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who had reportedly become more militant in her Muslim faith around the same time as her son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was added to the classified intelligence database known by the acronym TIDE at the CIA's request. Two key lawmakers said authorities now want to know if she helped put her son, who died a week ago following a shootout with police in Massachusetts, on the road to radicalism.

"She is a person of interest that we're looking at to see if she helped radicalize her son, or had contacts with other people or other terrorist groups," Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, also pointed to Zubeidat as someone who may have led Tamerlan down the path toward Islamic extremism.

"The mother in my judgment has a role in his radicalization process in terms of her influence over him (and) fundamental views of Islam," McCaul said.

Tsarnaeva was put on the database after Russia told the CIA the mother and son were religious militants preparing to travel to Russia, the AP reported. It has already been widely reported that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old suspect who died after a shootout with police in Massachusetts a week ago, was on the list.

The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database contains between 500,000 and 1 million names of people on the radar of various national security agencies, but a person's presence on the list does not automatically mean he or she is suspected of terrorist activity and does not automatically subject them to surveillance, security screening or travel restrictions.

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Breaking: Landing gear from 9-11 aircraft found wedged between two buildings

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NEW YORK (WABC) -- A part of a landing gear, apparently from one of the commercial airliners destroyed on September 11, 2001, has been discovered near Ground Zero.

The part was wedged between the rear of 51 Park Place and the rear of the building behind it, 50 Murray Street, in lower Manhattan, police say.

The NYPD is securing the location as it would a crime scene, documenting it photographically and restricting access until the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner completes its health and safety evaluation protocol.

A decision will then be made concerning sifting the soil for possible human remains. The aircraft part will not be removed until the process is completed, at which point it will secured by the NYPD Property Clerk. The part includes a clearly visible Boeing identification number. 

The investigation began after surveyors hired by the property owner who were inspecting the rear of 51 Park Place on Wednesday called 911 at approximately 11 a.m. to report what they identified as apparent damaged machinery behind the building there.

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Israel shoots down unidentified drone

Jerusalem (CNN) -- The Israeli air force shot down a drone approaching the nation's coast Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said.

An Israeli F-16 shot the drone with air-to-air missiles, an Israeli military official told CNN. It went down five nautical miles off the coast of Haifa, and Israeli naval forces were searching the area while an investigation was initiated, the Israeli military said.

"I view with utmost gravity this attempt to violate our border," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a prepared statement. "We will continue to do everything necessary to safeguard the security of Israel's citizens."

Thursday's incident marked the second time an unmanned aircraft had been intercepted in Israeli airspace within the past seven months, the IDF said.

In October 2012, Israeli warplanes tracked and eventually shot down a drone over the country's northern Negev Desert.

That drone did not carry any weapons or explosives, Israeli officials said at the time. They declined to discuss the drone's route or whether it had approached any sensitive facilities.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for sending the drone, which Israeli officials at the time said appeared to have originated in Lebanon.

Hezbollah frequently flies drones over Israel, but the military rarely bothers to shoot them down, Michah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations said at the time.

Boston bombers planned attack on Times Square

CHICAGOTRIBUNE: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today the two men accused of carrying out last week's bombing of the Boston Marathon had additional bombs and planned a second attack on New York's Times Square.

The brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's original intent when they hijacked a car and its driver in Boston last Thursday night was to drive to New York with bombs and detonate them in Times Square, but their plan fell apart when they became embroiled in a shootout with police.

“Last night we were informed by the FBI that the surviving attacker revealed that New York City was next on their list of targets,” Bloomberg said at New York City Hall. “He and his older brother intended to drive to New York and detonate those explosives in Times Square.”

One law enforcement source said earlier this was based on what surviving suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, told investigators in a Boston hospital. He is recovering from gunshot wounds in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was formally charged on Monday with crimes that could carry the death penaltyOfficials said the Tsarnaev brothers had six remaining improvised explosive devices and, after realizing they had been identified from surveillance images in Boston, spontaneously decided to drive to New York and set off those explosives. The six remaining devices included one pressure cooker bomb, as used in Boston, and five smaller pipe bombs.

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