Russia Also Warned CIA About Tamerlan

Russia not only warned the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011, it raised concerns to the CIA as well, reports the Washington Post. In response, the CIA asked the National Counterterrorism Center—the top US counterterror agency—to add Tsarnaev's name to a database that feeds national watch lists. Tsarnaev's name did indeed get added to the database, says the Post, and that's sure to raise more questions about why authorities weren't keeping a closer watch on him. Russia reportedly spoke to the CIA months after the FBI closed its own inquiry into Tsarnaev and deemed him to be no risk.

As with most developing stories in the Boston investigation, different services have different takes. Reuters, for instance, agrees that the elder Tsarnaev's name got added to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, but it says that happened because of the 2011 FBI inquiry. It has no mention of the CIA angle. Reuters adds that the TIDE database is so big—with more than 500,000 names—that there's no guarantee people who show up on it will face close scrutiny. (More CIA stories.)