10:50 AM: Cheers erupt as police confirm that the suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has been captured alive.
10:32 AM: CNN reports that police, through loudspeakers, are calling on the suspect to surrender.
The FBI told AFP that the agency had interviewed the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in 2011 "at the request of a foreign government." But agents found ?no derogatory information,? she added.
NBC news reports the boat is on fire. CNN reports gunfire in the neighborhood and paramedics headed to the scene.
The boat, covered and stored in the backyard of a home in Watertown, can be seen on Internet maps of the neighborhood. A neighbor told ABC News that the owner went to check on the boat, saw movement and called police.
CNN reports that a family, some 10 people, were evacuated from the house where the suspect is believed to be surrounded. They ran under police guard from the house. Neighbors were also evacuated before police moved on the house.
10:15 AM: Sources tell the Boston Globe reports that police believe the suspect is still alive as they have seen movement on the boat, but are concerned he may have explosives. There is also a 40-gallon tank near the boat that officials are concerned may be flammable.
A CNN producer on the scene hears eight explosions, likely flash bangs designed to stun the suspect.
10:06 AM: The Boston Police Twitter account @Boston_Police says: "Heavy police presence in area of Franklin St in Watertown. Residents remain inside."
Police believe that the suspect could have explosives, so they are proceding with extreme caution.
09:58 AM: Police surround a district where a Boston marathon suspect is believed to be hiding after a burst of automatic gunfire.
The Boston Globe quoted a source as saying police had 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "pinned down." CNN said police believed they had the suspect surrounded.
WCVB television said a body had been found on a boat in the district.
09:41 AM: Police cordoned off part of the Boston suburb of Watertown after gunfire was heard late Friday, and CNN television said police may have surrounded a teenaged marathon bombing suspect.
The alert was raised after a burst of gunfire erupted in Watertown and police squads raced to the area.
WATERTOWN, Massachusetts - A mass dragnet for a teen bombing suspect emptied the streets of Boston after a frenzied night of violence left the fugitive's accomplice brother and a police officer dead.
Thousands of police went "door-to-door, street-to-street" in the suburb of Watertown hunting for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is alleged to have carried out Monday's deadly Boston Marathon attack with his brother Tamerlan.
The brothers, who are of Chechen origin, are said to have killed a police officer in one shootout before Tamerlan, 26, was hit in a second gun battle in which a second officer was seriously wounded.
Tsarnaev escaped the night-time posse and eluded capture so far when authorities ordered people across the Boston area to stay behind locked doors. There were widespread fears that the teen had explosives strapped to his body.
Public transport in the city and Amtrak trains between Boston and New York were halted, while schools and universities, such as Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were closed along with businesses. Barely a bar or restaurant was open in the ghostly city center streets.
State police chief Timothy Alben said "we are progressing through this neighborhood, going door-to-door, street-to-street," as police scoured the town of Watertown in search of the suspect.
Tsarnaev's family and friends appealed for him to surrender to police, who chased him armed with shotguns and automatic rifles, with the backing of helicopters and armored personnel carriers.
The brothers are ethnic Chechen Muslims who moved to the United States about a decade ago. Their social media pages appeared to express sympathy with the struggle of Chechnya, which has been ravaged by two wars since 1994 between Russia and increasingly Islamist-leaning separatist rebels.
A citywide alert issued after two bombs tore through crowds at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding about 180, reached a fever pitch in the hours after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released pictures of the two suspects on Thursday US time.
The brothers tried to rob a convenience store near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge late Thursday, where a campus police officer was killed in a shootout, according to police.
A car driver was held up at gunpoint, but the driver was later freed and the two brothers took the car to Watertown, which was then sealed off by more than 9,000 police armed with shotguns, assault rifles and other weapons.
Police forced television stations to broadcast their coverage with a delay, saying it was to prevent the fugitive from getting tipped off from television.
Streets were empty apart from police and armored vehicles brought into the town. Search helicopters patrolled the skies and sirens blared across the city as bomb squads carried out house-to-house searches.
Residents in Boston and the surrounding suburbs were told to stay put as authorities halted public transport, closed schools and universities and ordered most businesses shut.
"Stay indoors with the doors locked, and do not open the door for anyone other than a properly identified law enforcement officer," Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick told reporters.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis described Dzhokhar Tsarnaev -- a baby-faced teen who was an all-star wrestler in high school -- as "armed and dangerous."
"We believe this to be a terrorist, we believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people."
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after suffering multiple gunshot wounds and an injury in an explosion, a doctor at Beth Israel hospital, David Schoenfeld, told reporters. Davis said one police officer was seriously wounded in the shooting.
During a car chase through Watertown before the final shootout, the brothers were seen throwing explosives out of the car, local media said, citing police reports. Blasts and gunfire were heard in several districts.
"We're Muslims, we're Chechens, we're ethnic Chechens," Ruslan Tsarni, who said he was the uncle of the suspects, told US media.
"Somebody radicalized them. It's not my brother."
A man who identified himself as the father of the pair, Anzor Tsarnaev, told Interfax news agency his sons were innocent. "In my opinion, my children were set up by the secret services because they are practicing Muslims," he said.
The attack on the marathon, which sent a hail of nails and shrapnel into a crowd of thousands at the finish line, was the worst terror assault on the United States since the September 11, 2001 suicide airliner attacks.
Just hours before the chaotic manhunt, the FBI on Thursday released pictures and video of the two suspects, appealing for help to identify the pair, who were carrying large backpacks.
One -- now identified as Dzhokhar -- was wearing a white baseball cap and the other -- Tamerlan -- a black cap.
The men are seen in the video walking calmly, one a few paces behind the other, weaving between crowds on Boston's Boylston Street where the race finished.
President Barack Obama, who was briefed early Friday by his national security team on developments in Boston, has pledged that the "evil" bombers would be brought to justice.
"Yes, we will find you, and yes, you will face justice," Obama said Thursday at a service at Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross attended by 2,000 people including blast survivors, relatives of the dead, rescuers and city leaders.
"If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us," Obama said, "it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it."
Boston has held emotional tributes to the dead -- eight-year-old Martin Richard, Boston University graduate student Lu Lingzi of China and Krystle Campbell, a restaurant manager. Obama paid tribute to all three at the service.
More than 100 of the wounded have left Boston hospitals and fewer than 10 of those still in hospital remain in critical condition. Some have horrific injuries and will require new operations, doctors said.
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