***UPDATE: Roommate of Ali Alharbi defends him to the New York Post:
A roommate of the man questioned in connection to yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombing described the Saudi national as “a good boy,” incapable of such a monstrous attack.
Investigators early last night converged on a fifth-floor apartment where the potential suspect lives with two roommates.
Mohammed Badawood, 20, described the potential suspect as “quiet and clean” and said he last saw him two days ago. Badawood told The Post he moved into the apartment about five months ago.
“He’s a good boy,” Badawood said of the potential suspect today. “I think he couldn’t do that.”
Officials showed up at the Revere apartment at about 5:30 p.m. yesterday in unmarked vehicles, a resident of the building said.
About an hour later, more vehicles, carrying agents of the FBI, Homeland Security and ATF also descended on the site, along with firefighters and a bomb squad.
Badawood said officials were searching his apartment when he arrived home last night at around 7.
Badawood said nothing was taken from the home and that officials told him the Saudi national was injured in the blast.
An FBI investigator examines a bag inside an apartment in Revere, in a building on the street where a man being questioned in the bomb attack lives.
However, officials were later seen carrying bags out of the apartment complex. It is unclear if those items came from that apartment.
***UPDATE: Click here to see photos of Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi.
***UPDATE: Fox News Boston has apparently learned the name of the person of interest:
FOX BOSTON – The source confirmed to FoxNews.com that the person of interest is Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, a 20-year-old Saudi. His Facebook page identifies him as a current or former student at the New England School of English. He is believed to have entered the country on a student visa.
The source stressed that Alharbi is a person of interest, not a suspect, and said he suffered serious injuries in the explosion.
(h/t: Shoebat)
The latest on the death toll is 3, with 144 injured of which 17 are critical:
YAHOO NEWS – Police said three people were killed. An 8-year-old boy was among the dead, according to a person who talked to a friend of the family and spoke on condition of anonymity. The person said the boy’s mother and sister were also injured as they waited for his father to finish the race.
Hospitals reported at least 144 people injured, at least 17 of them critically. The victims’ injuries included broken bones, shrapnel wounds and ruptured eardrums.
Also it looks like yesterday’s reports by the NY Post were pretty accurate as I see this morning most news orgs referring to a 20-year-old Saudi national who was here on a student visa being questioned by police, who then searched his home in Revere:
NY POST – Police took a 20-year-old Saudi national into custody near the scene of yesterday’s horrific Boston Marathon bomb attack, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
The potential suspect was questioned by the FBI and local police yesterday at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was under heavy guard while being treated for shrapnel injuries to his leg sustained in the blast.
In late afternoon, a large group of federal and state law enforcement agents raided an apartment in a building in the Saudi man’s hometown of Revere, Mass.
FBI agents could be seen through one window. It was not clear what, if anything, they found. But Revere fire officials said they were called out to support bomb-squad officers as part of an investigation of a “person of interest” in the marathon attack.
At the hospital, investigators seized the man’s clothes to examine whether they held any evidence that he was behind the attack. The law-enforcement sources also told The Post that the man was not free to leave the medical center.
He had suffered shrapnel wounds to the back of a leg but was not likely to die, a source said.
As of last night, investigators had not yet directly asked the man whether he had set off the bombs. But they had asked him general questions, such as what he was doing in the area.
The potential suspect told police he had dinner Sunday night near Boston’s Prudential Center, about half a mile from the blast site, the sources said.
He also said that he went to the Copley Square area yesterday to witness the finish of the race.
The sources said that, after the man was grabbed by police, he smelled of gunpowder and declared, “I thought there would be a second bomb.”
He also asked: “Did anyone die?”
Officials showed up at the Revere apartment at about 5:30 p.m. in unmarked vehicles, a resident of the building said. It’s on a street where the man had lived, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
About an hour later, more vehicles, carrying agents of the FBI, Homeland Security and ATF also descended on the site, along with firefighters and a bomb squad. They searched an apartment on the fifth floor.
By midnight, most of the authorities had left the complex, which sits on a piece of ocean-front property in the seaside city.
Investigators were looking for anything that might have been used set to off the devices, including a remote control.
According to a report by CBS News, the man was initially tackled by a bystander while running from the scene of the explosions.
The bystander told police he grabbed the Saudi because he thought he was acting suspiciously.
Let’s keep this thread about ongoing news events related to this. I’ll update as more details are revealed throughout the day.