US security officials are to face questions in Congress over whether they mishandled information about Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
They will brief the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed hearing, after some Congress members accused the FBI of failing to act on Russian concerns.
Tsarnaev was questioned in 2011 amid claims he had adopted radical Islam.
He was killed in a manhunt after the attack but his wounded brother Dzhokhar has been charged over the bombings.
Federal prosecutors charged him in hospital 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.
Both men 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 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?
The twin bombs which exploded near the finishing line of the marathon killed three people and injured more than 200.
Of those injured, 13 lost limbs. More than 50 people remain in hospital, three of them in a critical condition.
No evidenceMembers 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.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the intelligence committee, said that she and her colleagues would have to "sort it out" when they met FBI officials later on Tuesday.
The full Senate is expected to receive a briefing later in the week.
The FBI has defended itself, saying in a statement on Friday that it ran checks on the suspect but found no evidence of terrorist activity.
A request to Russia for more information to justify more rigorous checks went unanswered, and an interview by agents with Tsarnaev and his family also revealed nothing suspicious.
But Republican Senator Lindsey Graham questioned why the FBI was unable to identify him as a threat based on his alleged links to radical websites.
The Tsarnaev brothers
- Sons of Chechen refugees from the troubled Caucasus region of southern Russia
- Family is thought to have moved to the US in 2002 from Russian republic of Dagestan
- They lived in the Massachusetts town of Cambridge, home to Harvard University
- Dzhokhar, 19, (right) was awarded a scholarship to pursue further education; he wanted to become a brain surgeon, according to his father
- Tamerlan, 26, was an amateur boxer who had reportedly taken time off college to train for a competition; he described himself as a "very religious" non-drinker and non-smoker
He called for better co-operation with Russia and the amendment of privacy laws to allow closer scrutiny of suspects' internet activity.
Senator Graham added that the US authorities did not know Tsarnaev had gone to Russia in 2012 because his name was misspelled in travel documents.
He spent six months in Dagestan, another mainly Muslim Russian republic bordering Chechnya. During the visit, he also reportedly spent two days in Chechnya itself.
Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a manhunt last Friday. His 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar was later captured but was seriously wounded and remains in hospital.
No motive foundDzhokhar Tsarnaev attended a hearing on Monday from his hospital bed, where a 10-page criminal complaint was filed against him.
At the hearing, he managed to speak once despite a gunshot wound to his throat sustained during his capture.
Mr Tsarnaev, 19, 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.
Some reports say the brothers do not appear to have been linked to any Islamist militant groups, and little has emerged to suggest the younger brother was a religious militant.
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