NEW YORK TIMES SQUARE BOMB SUSPECT ARRESTED
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Faisal Shahzad Charged in Times Square Case – WSJ.com
Suspect Admits Bomb Plot
Man Charged in New York Terror Attempt Says He Trained in Pakistan, Officials Say
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703866704575223671205160344.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
By EVAN PEREZ and DEVLIN BARRETT in Washington and ZAHID HUSSAIN in Karachi, Pakistan
A 30-year-old man pulled from a jetliner just before it was to take off for Dubai admitted that he tried to detonate a car bomb in New York’s crowded Times Square after learning how to build bombs in a terrorist training camp in his native Pakistan, authorities say.
Faisal Shahzad, a Connecticut resident who became a U.S. citizen a little more than a year ago, was charged with five terrorism-related charges Tuesday. The case quickly expanded overseas as Pakistani authorities arrested some half dozen people known to have been in recent contact with Mr. Shahzad.
New York City detectives working with federal agents homed in on Mr. Shahzad during a round-the-clock probe that began Saturday evening when a vendor noticed smoke coming from a Nissan Pathfinder SUV left abandoned and running on 45th Street near Broadway in Manhattan. Federal officials learned his name Sunday night and by Monday morning they added him to the nation’s terrorist no-fly list to prevent him from leaving the country.
Mr. Shahzad had slipped away from agents watching his house Monday afternoon, according to people briefed on the case, and was arrested shortly before midnight at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly estimated 53 hours and 20 minutes elapsed from when the rusted 1993 Pathfinder across Broadway during the height of the Theater District’s evening rush Saturday to the time Mr. Shahzad was arrested.
“It is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.
During hours of interviews with FBI agents, authorities said Mr. Shahzad admitted that he bought the SUV for cash in recent weeks from a Connecticut woman and drove it into Times Square.
There he parked it and hustled away with the engine still running. He told investigators he constructed a crude but potentially lethal bomb from common items, including propane tanks, firecrackers and two clocks, that he arranged in the rear of the vehicle, authorities said…..
Bomb Suspect Said to Train in Pakistan
Times Square Car Bomb Case Widens With Arrests in Two Countires – NYTimes.com
Federal authorities on Tuesday charged a Pakistani-American man with terrorism-related crimes in the failed plot last weekend to detonate a car bomb in Times Square. The man spoke freely to investigators, officials said, admitting his role in the attempted attack and saying he had received explosives training in Waziristan, a lawless border region of Pakistan.
The arrest of the man, Faisal Shahzad, 30, as he tried to flee the country in a Dubai-bound jet late Monday was followed within hours by reports of arrests in Pakistan of seven or eight people, and as officials in the United States and Pakistan sought to determine the origins and scope of the plot.
American intelligence officials said that while Mr. Shahzad’s ties to international terrorist groups remained murky, evidence was mounting that the Pakistani Taliban played a role in the attempted attack on Saturday. If that is the case, it would be the group’s first effort to attack the United States and the first sign of the group’s ability to strike targets beyond Pakistan or Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban, whose largest group is known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is a different organization from the Taliban groups that the United States is battling in Afghanistan.
Mr. Shahzad’s ability to board an international flight despite being the target of a major terrorism investigation was the result of at least two lapses in the response by the government and the airline, Emirates.
Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan who lived in Bridgeport, Conn., was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and other federal charges, several related to explosives. He was interrogated without initially being read his Miranda rights under a public safety exception, and he provided what the Federal Bureau of Investigation called “valuable intelligence and evidence.”
He continued talking after being read his rights, the F.B.I. said. Authorities charged him as a civilian on Tuesday, but he did not appear in court and no hearing has been scheduled.
“It is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in the country,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a news conference on Tuesday in Washington.
Mr. Shahzad had booked a ticket on his way to the airport and bought it with cash when he got there, officials said. He had boarded the plane but was taken off before it taxied away.
Investigators had been trying to find Mr. Shahzad after determining that he was the man who bought a Nissan Pathfinder from a Connecticut woman several weeks ago and had parked it just off Broadway on Saturday night packed with gasoline, propane, fertilizer and fireworks. No one was hurt, but officials said the bomb could have been deadly on streets crowded with weekend revelers if it had ignited.
Officials said Mr. Shahzad had been placed on a no-fly list on Monday afternoon, but they declined to explain how he had been allowed to board the plane….
Bomb Scare in Times Square – Photographs – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/02/nyregion/20100502_TIMESSQUARE.html?ref=nyregion
18 pics
Times Square bomb suspect admits involvement in failed attack
Officials say Faisal Shahzad admitted to explosives training and driving the car used in the attempted attack. Related arrests are reported in Pakistan.
Times Square, bomb, Faisal Shahzad – latimes.com
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PHOTOS: Times Square bombing suspect arrested – latimes.com
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Security slip let suspect on plane, near takeoff
Security slip let suspect on plane, near takeoff – Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – The no-fly list failed to keep the Times Square suspect off the plane. Faisal Shahzad had boarded a jetliner bound for the United Arab Emirates Monday night before federal authorities pulled him back.
The night’s events, gradually coming to light, underscored the flaws in the nation’s aviation security system, which despite its technologies, lists and information sharing, often comes down to someone making a right call.
As federal agents closed in, Faisal Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped. By the time Customs and Border Protection officials spotted Shahzad’s name on the passenger list and recognized him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.
But it didn’t. At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner’s door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.
After authorities pulled Shahzad off the plane, he admitted he was behind the crude Times Square car bomb, officials said. He also claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents. That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.
Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening’s failed Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy area where he tried to detonate it….