Surveillance Images May Reveal Faisal Shahzad Purchasing Fireworks - FBI: "That's Our Man" - 05-06-10

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/06/times.square.fireworks.images/index.html?hpt...

Surveillance images appear to show suspect buying fireworks

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 6, 2010 8:13 p.m. EDT

New York (CNN) -- Surveillance images from a Pennsylvania fireworks company appear to show terrorism suspect Faisal Shahzad buying fireworks more than a month before the botched bombing attempt in New York's Times Square.

Bruce Zoldan, owner of Ohio-based Phantom Fireworks, told CNN that when he showed the video this week to federal agents, they told him, "That's our man."

The company gave the FBI the images, copies of which have been obtained by CNN.

Phantom Fireworks' Vice President William Weamer said the images appear to have been shot March 8 at one of the company's stores in Matamoras, Pennsylvania. Weamer said the FBI told them the driver's license displayed by the man at the store matches Shahzad's.

Official: Times Square suspect had Taliban ties

The FBI also told him that the fireworks match those found in Shahzad's Pathfinder and in his Connecticut home, he said.

Those include M-88s, 152 of which were seized from Shahzad's home and car, according to the FBI.

On the time-lapse images, Shahzad is seen driving a dark-colored SUV into the store's parking lot. Next, he can be seen walking into the store and signing a purchaser-verification form. In Pennsylvania, fireworks customers must provide identification.

For reasons that are unclear, the man signed Shahzad's name in reverse, according to the company.

The man, wearing blue jeans and a khaki jacket, next entered the aisles, where he spent about an hour shopping, the store said. During that time, he was the sole customer. A clerk offered to help, the store said, but he declined.

The man eventually put several items on the counter and checked out.

The store provided CNN with a copy of a $95.28 receipt for a cash sale dated March 8, 2010. After the purchases were placed in white plastic bags, the customer walked out.

"Shahzad was very cool, inquisitive and relaxed," Zoldan said.

In court papers, the FBI said M-88s were strapped to gas cans and propane tanks in Shahzad's car in an apparent effort to ignite the homemade bomb. It failed.

"It's our feeling that he bought them based on the notion that it was a higher explosive," Zoldan said. By law, he added, M-88s contain only 50 milligrams of pyrotechnic compound, equivalent to a sixth of an adult aspirin.

In court papers, the FBI said it traced a cell call made by Shahzad to the same store on April 25, nearly a week before the attempted bombing in Times Square.

UPDATE:

PART ONE...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/05/times.square.investigation/index.html

Click on photo to watch video

Day before bombing, Shahzad made a dry run in Manhattan, source says

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 5, 2010 11:06 p.m. EDT

New York (CNN) -- Faisal Shahzad made a practice run in Manhattan the day before he allegedly tried to blow up a car bomb in Times Square, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of his questioning.

Last Friday, Shahzad drove his white Isuzu from Connecticut through Times Square, where he staked out potential locations for the following night's planned attack, the source said. He then parked the Isuzu several blocks away from Times Square, though the precise location was unclear, and took a train back to Connecticut, the source said.

On Saturday night, with his recently acquired Nissan Pathfinder loaded with his makeshift explosives, Shahzad drove southbound along Manhattan's East River on FDR Drive to the 49th Street exit, the source said.

Shahzad then pulled over and reached into the Pathfinder's rear compartment where he attempted to set into motion the process needed to set off the homemade bomb, the source said.

The source, who did not explain how Shahzad had attempted to set off the bomb, said he then took a number of turns and wound up entering Times Square by driving south down Seventh Avenue. The source said Shahzad told investigators he turned right onto 45th Street toward Eighth Avenue because he saw a place to pull over.

It's unclear why Shahzad left the Pathfinder's engine running and hazard lights blinking.

But because of an incredible goof, Shahzad couldn't use his escape car. He had accidentally left the keys to that vehicle in the Pathfinder that he thought was about to blow up, the source said.

He apparently went to a train station, where he boarded a Metro North train back to Connecticut.

Another law enforcement source said investigators found a train receipt used by Shahzad that is stamped about 7 p.m., a half hour after a witness notified authorities that the car in Times Square was filing with smoke.

Sources say investigators believe he ran to catch the train that pulled out around 7 or 7:15 Saturday night.

The source added that police investigators have discovered a surveillance video of Shahzad walking in Shubert Alley -- which runs between 44th and 45th Streets just west of Broadway -- moments after witnesses saw the smoky SUV. In the video he is wearing a white baseball cap.

Efforts also continued Wednesday to determine what may have motivated Shahzad. An official familiar with the investigation said Wednesday that Shahzad felt Islam was under attack.

Any grudge Shahzad may have held against the United States appears to have developed recently, according to a senior U.S. official who is familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly.

The investigation has found nothing to indicate that Shahzad had any long-standing grudge or anger toward the United States, the official said.

"What we know is, the dynamic appeared to have changed in the last year," the official said.

Investigators have not determined whether Shahzad had any training from Pakistani groups in anything, the source said.

Additionally, the official suggested, detentions in Pakistan have been carried out to collect information and not because officials had reached any conclusions about their guilt or ties to any groups.

"They are reaching out to people, bringing them in and doing their due diligence, but 'arrest' suggests a strong connection to the guy. While anything is possible, they haven't arrived at any conclusion," the source said.

Authorities in Pakistan have rounded up a number of people for questioning, as U.S. law enforcement sought Wednesday to piece together the actions and motivations of Shahzad.

Iftikhar Mian, the father-in-law of Shahzad, and Tauseef Ahmed, Shahzad's friend, were picked up in Karachi, Pakistan, on Tuesday, two intelligence officials said.

An intelligence source said Wednesday that Muhammed Rehan, an associate of Shahzad, also was detained on Tuesday.

Rehan allegedly was instrumental in making possible a meeting between Shahzad and at least one senior Taliban official, a senior Pakistani official said Wednesday.

The official said that Rehan drove Shahzad on July 7 in a pickup truck to Peshawar, Pakistan. At some point, they headed to the Waziristan region, where they met with one or more senior Taliban leaders, the official said.

Rehan is believed to have links to the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is close to al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, the official said.

Several officials in Karachi said Rehan was picked up in Karachi's North Nazimabad district. They said others were taken into custody for questioning on Wednesday, but could not say how many, who they were or where they were seized.

CONTINUED...

PART ONE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/nyregion/06bomb.html?hp

Evidence Mounts for Taliban Role in Car Bomb Plot

Photo Caption: A boy looked through the gate of a home belonging to the family of Faisal Shahzad in Mohib Banda, Pakistan, on Wednesday.

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: May 5, 2010 - 10:57PM ET

WASHINGTON — American officials said Wednesday that it was very likely that a radical group once thought unable to attack the United States had played a role in the bombing attempt in Times Square, elevating concerns about whether other militant groups could deliver at least a glancing blow on American soil.

Officials said that after two days of intense questioning of the bombing suspect, Faisal Shahzad, evidence was mounting that the group, the Pakistani Taliban, had helped inspire and train Mr. Shahzad in the months before he is alleged to have parked an explosives-filled sport utility vehicle in a busy Manhattan intersection on Saturday night. Officials said Mr. Shahzad had discussed his contacts with the group, and investigators had accumulated other evidence that they would not disclose.

On Wednesday, Mr. Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a retired senior Pakistani Air Force officer, waived his right to a speedy arraignment, a possible sign of his continuing cooperation with investigators.

As his interrogation continued, Department of Homeland Security officials directed airlines to speed up their checks of new names added to the no-fly list, a requirement that might have prevented Mr. Shahzad from boarding a flight to Dubai on Monday night before his arrest at Kennedy International Airport.

The failed attack has produced a flurry of other proposals to tighten security procedures, including calls by members of Congress to more closely scrutinize passengers who buy tickets with cash, as Mr. Shahzad did. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, proposed stripping terrorism suspects of American citizenship, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg asked Congress to block the sale of firearms and explosives to those on terrorist watch lists.

American officials, speaking about the continuing inquiry only on condition of anonymity, gave few details about what Mr. Shahzad had told investigators, and said their understanding of the plot would evolve as a dragnet spanning two continents gathered more evidence.

One senior Obama administration official cautioned that “there are no smoking guns yet” that the Pakistani Taliban had directed the Times Square bombing. But others said that there were strong indications that Mr. Shahzad knew some members of the group and that they probably had a role in training him.

In a video on Sunday, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing.

One issue that investigators are vigorously pursuing is who provided Mr. Shahzad cash to buy the S.U.V. and his plane ticket to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. “Somebody’s financially sponsoring him, and that’s the link we’re pursuing,” one official said. “And that would take you on the logic train back to Pak-Taliban authorizations,” the official said, referring to the group.

American officials said it had become increasingly difficult to separate the operations of the militant groups in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The region, they said, has become a stew of like-minded organizations plotting attacks in Pakistani cities, across the border into Afghanistan, and on targets in Western Europe and the United States.

Besides the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda, groups operating in the tribal areas are the Haqqani Network and the Kashmiri groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad.

There is no doubt among intelligence officials that the barrage of attacks by C.I.A. drones over the past year has made Pakistan’s Taliban, which goes by the name Tehrik-i-Taliban, increasingly determined to seek revenge by finding any way possible to strike at the United States.

The C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan, which was accelerated in 2008 and expanded by President Obama last year, has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Washington in part because it was perceived as eliminating dangerous militants while keeping Americans safe.

But the attack in December on a C.I.A. base in Afghanistan, and now possibly the failed S.U.V. attack in Manhattan, are reminders that the drones’ very success may be provoking a costly response.

Last March, when the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud boasted that his group was planning an attack on Washington that would “amaze everyone in the world,” many American officials dismissed his claims as empty bravado. His network, they said, had neither the resources nor the reach to pull off an attack far beyond its base in the mountains of western Pakistan.

But the attempted attack on Saturday has forced something of a reassessment, especially as American officials see militant groups determined to score a propaganda victory by pulling off even the crudest of attacks.

If the Pakistani Taliban was involved in the Times Square bombing plot, the organization is only the latest militant group to expand beyond a local political agenda and strike the United States. The Christmas Day attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner, for instance, was traced to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whose primary targets had previously been the Saudi and Yemeni governments.

But for such a group, trying for the biggest prize in the jihadist universe — a successful attack on American soil — could have significant payoffs, said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05plane.html?hp

May 5, 2010 - 4:35 AM EDT

Lapses Allowed Suspect to Board Plane

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — Why was Faisal Shahzad permitted to board a flight for Dubai some 24 hours after investigators of the Times Square terrorism case learned he might be connected to the attempted bombing?

Though Mr. Shahzad was stopped before he could fly away, there were at least two significant lapses in the security response of the government and the airline that allowed him to come close to making his escape, officials of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies said on Tuesday.

First, an F.B.I. surveillance team that had found Mr. Shahzad in Connecticut lost track of him — it is not clear for how long — before he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the officials said. As a result, investigators did not know he was planning to fly abroad until a final passenger list was sent to officials at the federal Customs and Border Protection agency minutes before takeoff.

In addition, the airline he was flying, Emirates, failed to act on an electronic message at midday on Monday notifying all carriers to check the no-fly list for an important added name, the officials said. That meant lost opportunities to flag him when he made a reservation and paid for his ticket in cash several hours before departure.

Top Obama administration officials and some members of Congress on Tuesday praised the government’s handling of the investigation, noting that Mr. Shahzad was identified, tracked and arrested before he could escape.

But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, while saying he was reluctant to criticize those in charge of airport security, added: “Clearly the guy was on the plane and shouldn’t have been. We got lucky.”

Senator Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine, said she applauded the work of law enforcement officials in quickly solving the case. Still, she added, “A key question for me is why this suspect was allowed to board the plane in the first place. There appears to be a troubling gap between the time they had his name and the time he got on the plane.”

At a news conference in Washington, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that despite the break in physical surveillance, he had never been concerned that Mr. Shahzad would get away.

“I was here all yesterday and through much of last night, and was aware of the tracking that was going on,” Mr. Holder said. “And I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him.”

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, called the capture of the accused terrorist “a great team effort.” She added: “The law enforcement work in this case was truly exemplary.”

While the officials emphasized the successful outcome to the chase, a more detailed account, in interviews with officials who spoke of the continuing investigation mostly on condition of anonymity, gave a mixed picture.

On Sunday night, about 24 hours after the smoking Nissan Pathfinder was left on a bustling Manhattan street, investigators identified Mr. Shahzad as the buyer of the car. While the vehicle identification number had been removed from the passenger compartment, a detective found a duplicate number on the engine block.

But at that point, officials said, they were uncertain of Mr. Shahzad’s role and did not think they had enough evidence to arrest him and charge him with a crime. Instead, they began an urgent manhunt; F.B.I. agents located Mr. Shahzad in Bridgeport, Conn., and began to follow him.

It remained uncertain Tuesday night at what time Mr. Shahzad had been found and when he was lost. Paul Bresson, an F.B.I. spokesman, declined to comment on the surveillance issue.

But at about 12:30 p.m. on Monday, more certain that Mr. Shahzad was the suspected terrorist, investigators asked the Department of Homeland Security to put him on the no-fly list. Three minutes later, the department sent airlines, including Emirates, an electronic notification that they should check the no-fly list for an update. At about 4:30 p.m., more information was added to the list, including Mr. Shahzad’s passport number, officials said.

Workers at Emirates evidently did not check the list, because at 6:30 p.m., Mr. Shahzad called the airline and booked a flight to Pakistan via Dubai, officials said. At 7:35 p.m., he arrived at the airport, paid cash for his ticket and was given a boarding pass.

Airlines are not required to report cash purchases, a Homeland Security official said. Emirates actually did report Mr. Shahzad’s purchase to the Transportation Security Administration — but only hours later, when he was already in custody, the official said.

Mr. Shahzad had evaded the surveillance effort and bought his ticket seven hours after his name went on the no-fly list. But the system gives security officials one more chance to stop a dangerous passenger.

As is routine, when boarding was completed for the flight, Emirates Flight EK202, the final passenger manifest was sent to the National Targeting Center, operated in Virginia by Customs and Border Protection. There, at about 11 p.m., analysts discovered that Mr. Shahzad was on the no-fly list and had just boarded a plane.

They sounded the alarm, and minutes later, with the jet still at the gate, its door was opened and agents came aboard and took Mr. Shahzad into custody, officials said. The airliner then pulled away from the gate but was called back.

“Actually I have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately,” an air traffic controller told the pilot, according to a recording posted to the Web by LiveATC.net, which tracks air communications. “I don’t know exactly why, but you can call your company for the reason,” the controller added.

After the plane was called back, the authorities removed two more passengers. They were questioned and cleared. They and all the rest of the passengers were rescreened, as was the baggage, and the flight took off about seven hours late.

An Emirates spokeswoman, who said she was not allowed to speak on the record, declined to comment on the claims by government officials that the airline had neglected to recheck the no-fly list. “Emirates takes every necessary precaution to ensure the safety and well-being of its passengers and crew and regrets the inconvenience caused,” the airline said in a statement.

One long-planned change in security procedures may reduce the chances of a repeat failure to check an updated no-fly list, officials said. The Transportation Security Administration is taking over the job of checking passenger manifests against the no-fly list under its Secure Flight program.

Such checks are currently being done by the T.S.A. for domestic flights, and the agency is scheduled to be checking all international flights by the end of the year, agency officials said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/05/times.square.investigation/index.html?hpt=T1

Questions surface over Times Square investigation

By the CNN Wire Staff

May 5, 2010 4:20 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Questions remained in the days following the dramatic arrest of the Times Square bombing suspect, who was captured only minutes before his plane was due to take off for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Faisal Shahzad was able to board Emirates Flight 202 late Monday despite being put on a no-fly list earlier in the day, but at the time of his ticket purchase, the airline had not refreshed its information so his name did not raise any red flags, a senior counterterrorism official said.

Authorities had tailed Shahzad throughout the day, but lost him before he arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he was ultimately arrested, the official said.

However, an FBI official responded that surveillance operations are designed with redundancies in place, and that agents had to avoid tipping off Shahzad that he was being followed.

At a Tuesday news conference, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defended surveillance efforts.

"I was here all yesterday and through much of last night and was aware of the tracking that was going on, and I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him," Holder said.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, noted that, along with a Nigerian man who tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day, this is the second high-profile incident in recent memory where someone on the U.S. no-fly list has managed to board a plane.

"Whatever went wrong, I hope they get their acts together and correct it," Rangel said. "The good thing about this is that nobody was hurt in either case, but ... someone ought to come up with the answer and see that it doesn't happen again."

Shahzad was arrested shortly before midnight Monday at JFK airport after U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which reviews all flight manifests, caught his name when the airline sent the agency its passenger list, according to the counterterrorism official.

The terror plot may dominate discussions Wednesday as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg travels to Washington for a previously scheduled Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on terrorism.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine and ranking member of the committee, has already expressed concerns.

"A key question for me is why this suspect was allowed to board the plane in the first place," Collins said, according to the New York Times. "There appears to be a troubling gap between the time they had his name and the time he got on the plane."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN that U.S. intelligence efforts have to be better.

"Being lucky can't be our national security strategy," Hoekstra said. "We were lucky on Christmas Day. We were lucky last week."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05arrest.html?hp

May 4, 2010

A RENEWED DEBATE OVER SUSPECT RIGHTS

By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — The arrest of a suspect in the attempted Times Square car bombing revived the volatile political debate over terrorism policy on Tuesday, as President Obama’s supporters and critics squared off over how the nation should handle those plotting against it.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was interrogated without initially being read his Miranda rights under a public safety exception, and provided what the F.B.I. called “valuable intelligence and evidence.”

After investigators determined there was no imminent threat to be headed off, Mr. Shahzad was later read his rights to remain silent, but he waived them and continued talking, the F.B.I. said. Authorities charged him as a civilian on Tuesday, but postponed plans to bring him to court.

The handling of Mr. Shahzad touched off the same sort of argument that followed the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a passenger jet bound for Detroit. Some Republicans urged the Obama administration to interrogate Mr. Shahzad without affording him Miranda rights and to classify him as an enemy combatant, which would allow authorities to detain him indefinitely. But Democrats said his quick arrest and his reported confession showed the system can respond to threats of terrorism without resorting to extraordinary tactics.

“The American people can be assured that the F.B.I. and their partners in this process have all the tools and experience they need to learn everything we can,” Mr. Obama said. “That includes what, if any, connection this individual has to terrorist groups. And it includes collecting critical intelligence as we work to disrupt any future attacks.”

Republicans quickly accused the administration of worrying too much about legal niceties and not enough about public safety.

“We’ve got to be far less interested in protecting the privacy rights of these terrorists than in collecting information that may lead us to details of broader schemes to carry out attacks in the United States,” Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said in an interview.

Senator John McCain of Arizona called it a mistake to read Mr. Shahzad his Miranda rights so soon. “When we detain terrorism suspects, our top priority should be finding out what intelligence they have that could prevent future attacks and save American lives,” he said on Sean Hannity’s radio show. “Our priority should not be telling them they have a right to remain silent.”

Representative Peter T. King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a separate interview that he was troubled by the rush to charge Mr. Shahzad as a civilian. “In these kinds of cases, the first preference should be a military commission because you can get more information,” he said.

But unlike the Nigerian suspect in the Christmas attack, Mr. Shahzad is an American citizen.

The Supreme Court has ruled that an American citizen captured in Afghanistan could be detained as an enemy combatant, but it is not clear whether that would apply to citizens detained on American soil.

Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, only noncitizens can be tried in a military commission, meaning the law would need to be changed to bring Mr. Shahzad before such a tribunal.

Democrats said the Shahzad case dispels the idea that constitutional protections need to be tossed aside in cases of terrorism. “We have proven in this country for a long, long time that you can get very valuable information out of people after you Mirandize them,” Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington, said in an interview. Looking at the results of other interrogations, he said, “you see that what we’re doing is actually very effective.”

In a case of odd allies, Glenn Beck, the conservative Fox News commentator, said Mr. Shahzad was entitled to his rights. “He’s a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens,” Mr. Beck said. “He has all the rights under the Constitution. We don’t shred the Constitution when it’s popular.”

The administration is struggling to recalibrate the war against terrorists and to pull back on some of what Mr. Obama considers the excesses of the past. The administration has yet to figure out how to keep its promise to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And it is reconsidering plans to hold civilian trials in New York City for figures accused of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that he has not ruled out holding 9/11 terror trials in New York. “Unfortunately, New York and Washington, D.C., remain targets of people who would do this nation harm,” he said. “And regardless of where a particular trial is, where a particular event is going to occur, I think that is going to remain true. And it is why we have to be especially vigilant in New York as well as in Washington.”

The White House said that the Central Intelligence Agency and the director of national intelligence were consulted before the decision to read Mr. Shahzad his Miranda rights, and that the high-value interrogation group that specializes in terrorism cases was tapped for its expertise.

Because of the limits on the handling of Mr. Shazad, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, suggested legislation that would strip the citizenship of Americans tied to terrorism. Speaking on Fox News, he noted that existing law removes citizenship from Americans fighting for enemy militaries.

“It’s time for us to look at whether we want to amend that law to apply it to American citizens who choose to become affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations, whether they should not also be deprived automatically of their citizenship and therefore be deprived of rights that come with that citizenship when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act,” he said.

A graphic shows the positioning of charges inside the SUV.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/05/05/us/05bombcham/05bombcham-custom8....

UPDATE - 05-04-10 - CNN

Times Square suspect had explosives training, documents say

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2010 7:02 p.m. EDT

If you click on the following link, you'll be able to follow a really well-designed timeline of the events:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1&iref...

New York (CNN) -- A suspect in the failed Times Square car bombing told law enforcement officials that he recently received bomb-making training in Pakistan, court documents filed Tuesday show.

Additionally, charges against Faisal Shahzad allege that he received a series of phone calls from Pakistan in the days leading up to the incident, including five calls on the same day he bought the Nissan Pathfinder used in the attempted attack Saturday night in the bustling area of New York.

The documents, filed in U.S. District Court, detail five counts against Shahzad: attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, use of a destructive device in connection with criminal violence, transporting and receiving explosives, and damaging and destroying property by means of fire.

If convicted, Shahzad could get life in prison.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1&iref...

Charges filed against Times Square car bombing suspect

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2010 5:07 p.m. EDT

Tune in to CNN's "The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer" at 6:30 p.m. ET Tuesday for an interview with Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Find out about the arrests in Pakistan and what role the country is playing in the Times Square probe.

New York (CNN) -- A suspect in the failed Times Square car bombing admitted to law enforcement officials that he attempted to detonate the bomb and that he recently received bomb-making training in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, court documents allege.

Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American who was arrested Monday night at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, has been charged with five counts in connection with the case, according to documents filed Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in New York. He was to appear in federal court in Manhattan later Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said Shahzad -- who lived in Connecticut and became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year -- admitted involvement in what authorities have now labeled "a terrorist plot."

"It is clear that this was a terrorist plot," Holder said, adding that it could have caused "death and destruction in the heart of New York City."

UPDATE: 05-04-10 - 3:23PM EDT - CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1&iref...

Times Square suspect admitted role in plot, Holder says
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2010 3:12 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The suspect in the failed Times Square car bombing has admitted involvement in what authorities have now labeled "a terrorist plot," Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American, was arrested around 11:45 p.m. ET Monday at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport moments before he was to fly to Pakistan via Dubai. He is to appear in federal court in Manhattan later Tuesday.

"It is clear that this was a terrorist plot," Holder said. It could have caused "death and destruction in the heart of New York City."

Shahzad was on board Emirates Airlines Flight 202 to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, when the plane was called to return to the gate, a law enforcement source said. Shahzad was booked through to Islamabad, Pakistan, via Dubai, a senior airline official confirmed.

The FBI said its agents and New York detectives then arrested Shahzad "for allegedly driving a car bomb into Times Square."

FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said that Shahzad was on the federal "no fly" list, which helped Customs and Border Protection agents to arrest him.

Holder said federal agents are continuing to question Shahzad.

"As a result of those communications, Shahzad has provided useful information to authorities. We anticipate charging him with an act of terrorism transcending national borders, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, use of a destructive device during the commission of another crime, as well as assorted explosives charges."

Hours after authorities arrested Shahzad, security forces in Pakistan seized two or three people in a raid in connection with the failed Times Square bombing, a Pakistani intelligence source said.

The Pakistan raid took place in a house in Karachi's Nazimabad district where Shahzad was believed to have stayed during his last visit to the country. Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent.

Shahzad has a Karachi identification card, a sign of Pakistani residency, and his family is from volatile northwestern Pakistan, where government forces have been fighting Taliban militants, who have strongholds in the area, according to Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Meanwhile, investigators Tuesday found a 9 mm handgun with ammunition in a white Isuzu that the suspect is believed to have driven to the airport, a federal law enforcement source said.

The source also said 15 bags of "standard green fertilizer" were found in the trash outside Shahzad's Shelton, Connecticut, apartment. Also found in the trash was flash powder.

Hours after the arrest, police were at a house in a Bridgeport, Connecticut, working-class neighborhood. Agents with the FBI and local police, including members of a bomb squad, conducted a search, and investigators removed filled plastic bags.

Investigators also were combing through Shahzad's receipts, and roommates were being interviewed.

Detectives also found a hand-drawn map in the attempted bombing probe, but it's not clear where it was found, a federal law enforcement official said.

President Obama said Tuesday that "justice will be done" in the case and that U.S. officials "will do everything in our power to protect the American people."

The failed bombing is "another sobering reminder of the times in which we live," Obama told an audience of business leaders. But the United States "will be vigilant" and "will not cower in fear," he said.

Also Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the dogged law enforcement efforts but also said the city won't tolerate any backlash against Pakistanis or Muslims.

Police have been engaged in a furious manhunt in the New York area for those responsible for an intended terrorist attack Saturday night in the heart of Manhattan's Times Square.

According to a source familiar with the investigation, the individuals didn't have the expertise to detonate a parked Nissan Pathfinder containing propane tanks, fertilizer and gasoline.

Authorities focused on Shahzad when they traced evidence to him from the sale of the Nissan Pathfinder used in the failed attack -- information considered the linchpin of the case.

The Nissan Pathfinder had its vehicle identification number removed from the dashboard. Police climbed under the SUV and retrieved the VIN from the bottom of its engine block.

This breakthrough led investigators to the vehicle's registered owner and then on to Shahzad, who purchased the SUV, an official said.

The Nissan Pathfinder was sold three weeks ago in a cash deal with no paperwork exchanged, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said Monday. The $1,800 deal was closed at a Connecticut shopping mall, where the buyer handed over the money and drove off, the source said.

Cell phone calls conducted for the purchase of the vehicle helped lead police to the suspect, law enforcement sources said.

Sources said investigators got cell phone information from the daughter of the Nissan Pathfinder owner. She sold the vehicle to Shahzad on behalf of her father.

She talked on the phone to Shahzad in organizing the purchase of the sport utility vehicle, which was advertised for sale on Craigslist.

Another law enforcement source said Shahzad claimed to have acted alone in the attempted bombing, but the Joint Terrorism Task Force has said it's considering the possibility that the attempt involved more than just a "lone wolf."

The official who released the information about the map said he believes Shahzad "wasn't working alone."

While police continued to piece together information about Shahzad, they learned he traveled to Dubai before, most recently in June 2009 and returned to the United States in early February, a law enforcement official said.

Shahzad became a U.S. citizen on April 17, 2009, which aided investigators in the case, the federal law enforcement source said. Because of his recent change in residency status, authorities had his picture and were able to show it to the seller of the vehicle, who identified Shahzad as the purchaser.

A woman who said she lived next door to Shahzad in Shelton, Connecticut, said there was some kind of police activity at his former residence Monday.

Brenda Thurman said Tuesday that the man she knew was quiet and claimed to work on Wall Street.

"He would wear all black and jog at night. He said he didn't like the sunlight," Thurman said.

She said that Shahzad, his wife, two children and his wife's two sisters lived next to her for about three years, moving out in July 2009.

Shahzad's wife told Thurman then that the family was moving to Missouri. A few weeks after they left, the bank foreclosed on the property and changed the locks, the neighbor said.

Court documents reveal Shahzad purchased a house that entered foreclosure proceedings last year.

Documents from Connecticut's Milford Superior Court show that Shahzad and Huma Mian purchased a home at 119 Long Hill Ave. in Shelton in July 2004. They took out a mortgage for $218,400 from Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corp.

Last September, the mortgage company began foreclosure proceedings. As of December 14, Shahzad and Mian owed $207,837.

CNN's Craig Bell, Deborah Feyerick, Samson Desta, Tim Lister, Jeanne Meserve, Reza Sayah, Caroline Faraj and David Fitzpatrick contributed to this report.

UPDATE: CNN - 05/04/10 - 2:11 AM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1

Bomb plot suspect arrested trying to catch flight to Dubai

By the CNN Wire Staff

May 4, 2010 2:11 a.m. EDT

New York (CNN) -- A U.S. citizen has been arrested in the Times Square bombing probe, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced early Tuesday.

Faisal Shahzad was arrested at JFK airport in New York as he prepared to board a flight to Dubai, Holder said.

"It is clear the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans," Holder said. "We will not rest until we bring everyone responsible to justice."

Law enforcement officials said the suspect is the person who bought the Nissan Pathfinder used in the bombing attempt.

Earlier, a law enforcement official said the buyer is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, and that investigators are looking at more than one person in connection with the unsuccessful bombing.

CNN has learned that the Joint Terrorism Task Force investigating the bombing attempt is considering the possibility that the attempt involved more than just a "lone wolf."

According to a source familiar with the investigation, investigators believe the plan was an intended terrorist attack to set off explosives in the heart of midtown Manhattan on Saturday night, but the individuals didn't have the expertise to detonate their device.

The Nissan Pathfinder had been sold three weeks ago in a cash deal with no paperwork exchanged, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN earlier Monday. The $1,800 deal was closed at a Connecticut shopping mall, where the buyer handed over the money and drove off, the source said.

The seller described the buyer as a man in his late 20s to early 30s, and investigators are checking into phone records between the two, the source said.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=7419449

NYC bomb attempt: Person of interest arrested
Monday, May 03, 2010

NEW YORK -- A person of interest in the Times Square attempted bombing was arrested by police in Long Island Monday night.

One senior official said there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate.

Officials declined to provide the specifics that led them to believe there were overseas links to a larger plot.

The Washington Post, quoting Obama Administration sources, said the attempted bombing "increasingly appears to have been coordinated by several people in a plot with international links."

Other law enforcement officials said the investigation was closing in on the driver of the vehicle and an unknown number of others connected to him.

"This is moving very fast because they left behind a treasure trove of evidence in the unexploded car," one US official told ABC News.

Officials told ABC News Senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas that the Connecticut owner of the vehicle told them he had sold the Nissan SUV last month in an unrecorded sale to an "Arabic or Latino looking man" in his 20's or 30's, for a few hundred dollars in cash.

The license plate on the car was apparently stolen from an auto repair shop outside Bridgeport, Connecticut, according to law enforcement officials.

The authorities told ABC News that the previous owner provided a description of the man who bought the car, and told investigators the vehicle was sold for several hundred dollars in cash, with no written records identifying the purchaser.

The license plate found on the Pathfinder also came from Connecticut, #98CY09, according to photographs of the vehicle.

Times Square Bomb

Authorities tell ABC News that the plate came from a vehicle that was in a repair shop near Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Meantime, police are now engaged in an urgent manhunt for a man caught on tape near the SUV, loaded with propane, fireworks, fertilizer and timing devices.

Though a Taliban leader thought killed in a U.S. drone strike has now resurfaced in a video threatening attacks on U.S. cities, and the Taliban has claimed credit for the failed New York attack, U.S. authorities are skeptical.

According to police, surveillance shots from a half block away from the site of the Saturday incident may give clues to the person responsible.

The New York City Police Department has released video showing a white male in his 40s looking back in the direction of West 45th street. He can also be seen in the video shedding a dark-colored shirt, revealing a red one underneath.

On Good Morning America, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg was cautious in his description of the man on the surveillance tape, calling him "a person of interest."

Bloomberg expressed confidence that whoever was responsible for the failed attack would be caught. "There's a high probability we will find out who did this," said Bloomberg. "There's a lot of evidence."

The would-be bomber packed the car with more than 100 pounds of fertilizer, but not the kind that would explode, police said.

Had the bomber chosen the right kind of fertilizer, the bomb would have had the force of more than 100 pounds of TNT. But instead of ammonium nitrate, the kind of fertilizer used by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the bomber used a harmless fertilizer, New York City Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.

A surveillance camera captured an image of the car crossing Broadway through pre-theater crowds just before 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The car was left on W. 45th Street with its lights flashing and engine running.

The surrounding area was evacuated after street vendor Duane Jackson saw smoke coming from the Pathfinder and alerted police. Jackson, who has been working in Times Square for 13 years, said he is always on alert in the crowded public space, and in touch with police. "Vigilance is the key," said Jackson. "Keep your wits about you [and] don't take anything for granted."

Police moved back thousands of theatergoers and tourists as the bomb squad moved in.

Technicians blew open the back doors and trunk and found the car packed with propane canisters and gasoline containers.

Clearly it was the intent of whoever did this to cause mayhem," said New York police commissioner Ray Kelly.

"They would not have been able to have stopped the bomb if it had been wired properly," said former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "Someone was able to drive into New York with what looks like bomb parts, drive right into the heart of Times Square, pull up on the sidewalk, jump up and run away and not get caught."

The bomb bore similarities to two Al Qaeda-connected attacks on a London nightclub and an airport in Scotland in 2007. Three vehicles used in the attempted bombings contained propane gas tanks.

Al Qaeda has posted videos showing how to construct a bomb using propane tanks and gasoline.

On Sunday night, the Taliban released a video featuring Hakimullah Mehsud, who U.S. and Pakistani authorities had thought was killed in a drone strike in January.

On the recording Mehsud can be heard saying, "The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in their major cities." He also claims that Taliban fedayeen "have penetrated the terrorist America, we will give extremely painful blows to the fanatic America."

Mehsud's video was recorded April 4, and Mehsud threatens attacks in the days and weeks to come.

Earlier, in the hours after the failed Times Square bombing, a Taliban group in Pakistan claimed responsibility for what it called a "jaw-breaking blow to Satan's USA. But U.S. officials expressed doubt about a Taliban connection.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN...

Source: Arrest made in Times Square car bomb plot
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2010 12:35 a.m. EDT

Faisal Shahzad has been arrested in Long Island, New York.

UPDATE - 05-03-10 - THE NEW YORK TIMES - 10:34PM EDT

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/nyregion/04bomb.html?hp

U.S. Seeks Man From Pakistan Tied to S.U.V. in Bomb Case

This article is by William K. Rashbaum, Mark Mazzetti and Peter Baker.

Federal authorities have identified the man who recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was rigged to explode in Times Square as a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan who recently returned from a trip there, and were seeking to arrest him on Monday night, according to several people briefed on the investigation.

The man, a Connecticut resident who was not publicly identified, bought the sport utility vehicle in Bridgeport, within the last three weeks, paying cash in a deal that involved no formal paperwork.

Investigators who were tracking the man were also exploring whether he or others who might have been involved in the attempted bombing had been in contact with people or groups overseas, according to federal officials. The investigation was shifted on Monday to the control of the international terrorism branch of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency group led by the Justice Department, according to two officials.

Officials cautioned that the investigation of possible international contacts did not mean there was a connection to a known terrorist group, but they said they were exploring all possibilities.

“It’s a prominent lead that they’re following, the international association,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. “But there’s still a lot of information being gathered.”

On Monday, there was a sweeping response to the attempted attack in the tourist-packed city-within-a-city of Times Square — including an increased police presence, vehicle inspections and a touch of panic from veteran New Yorkers when a manhole fire flared five blocks from the scene of the failed bombing. Consolidated Edison blamed faulty wiring for the fire.

The recent sale of the Pathfinder began online. An advertisement that appears to be for the vehicle, which had 141,000 miles on the odometer and was listed for sale at $1,300 on at least two Web sites, emphasized that it was in good condition — “CLEAN inside and out!!” — with a recently repaired alternator and a new gas pump, distributor and front tires. “It does have some rust as you can see in the picture,” the seller allowed on NothingButCars.net, “but other than that, it runs great.” The other advertisement appeared on Craigslist.

In Bridgeport, the seller refused to answer questions. “You can’t interview her,” said an unidentified man at the woman’s two-story, white clapboard house. “She already talked to the F.B.I.”

The police continued sifting through footage from 82 city cameras mounted from 34th Street to 51st Street between Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue, and from untold number of business and tourist cameras.

But investigators appeared to have begun to assign less significance to a man who appeared to be in his 40s who was seen on one video. That man was seen walking away from the area where the Pathfinder was parked and through Shubert Alley, which runs between 44th and 45th Streets. He looked over his shoulder at least twice and pulled off a shirt, revealing a red T-shirt underneath.

The New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said investigators still wanted to speak to that man, but acknowledged that he might not be connected to the failed bombing. Paul J. Browne, the department’s top spokesman, said the police had stopped looking for additional video in the area that might have tracked the man’s movements.

“It may turn out that he was just somebody in the area, but not connected with the car bomb,” Mr. Browne said.

The police, though, said they might release footage of a man running north on Broadway at the time that a fire broke out in the Pathfinder, Mr. Kelly said.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seemed optimistic in comments he made Monday morning. “I think that we have made really substantial progress,” he told reporters in Washington. “We have some good leads.”

UPDATE - 05-03-10 - CNN - 10:11PM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/03/new.york.car.bomb/index.html?hpt=T1&iref...

Source: Times Square bomb inquiry looks at Pakistani-American

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 3, 2010 10:11 p.m. EDT

New York (CNN) -- Investigators are looking into whether a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin played any role in the failed weekend attempt to set off a car bomb in Times Square, a federal source said Monday.

The sport-utility vehicle used in the unsuccessful plot was sold three weeks ago in a cash deal with no paperwork exchanged, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said Monday.

A seller in Connecticut put the Nissan Pathfinder up for sale through the online classified ad site Craigslist and sold it to a buyer who paid $1,800 for the vehicle, the source told CNN. The $1,800 deal was closed at a Connecticut shopping mall, where the buyer handed over the money and drove off, the SUV's source said.

The seller described the buyer as a man in his late 20s to early 30s, and investigators are checking into phone records between the two, the source said.

The registered owner is not a suspect in the bombing attempt, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Monday. But authorities are searching for two people they want to question in connection with the would-be bomb, which Kelly said could have produced "a significant fireball" in the heart of midtown Manhattan had it detonated properly on Saturday night.

iReport: Were you there? Share pics, videos

A video obtained from a tourist in the area shows a person apparently running north on Broadway. Another video shows a balding man with dark hair removing a shirt and putting it in a bag before walking out of view of the camera, which was inside a restaurant.

"These are not suspects," Kelly said. "These are people we would like to speak to."

Investigators are examining phone records of businesses that sell some of the bomb's components and chasing leads in "several locations" on the East Coast and beyond, a federal law enforcement official told CNN. The official would not say whether any of the leads were in other countries, and cautioned that the investigation could take "a few more days or weeks."

The device inside the Pathfinder was made of propane tanks, gasoline and fertilizer that turned out to be of a nonexplosive grade, along with a metal pot containing wiring and firecrackers. More firecrackers were found in a can on the back seat of the vehicle, sandwiched between two full five-gallon gasoline cans and connected by wires to clocks.

New York police have been examining the device for clues such as fingerprints, hair and fibers since Saturday. The vehicle and bomb components were taken to the FBI's forensic laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, on Monday, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said Monday evening.

Kevin Barry, a former New York bomb squad member, said the device had "no known signature" -- a style of construction that might link it to known terrorist groups. That suggests it was the work of either an individual or a new organization, said Barry, who is now an adviser to the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators.

Barry said the detonating mechanism lacked the energy needed to properly set off the explosion. Jim Cavanaugh, a former agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, called the bomb "a Rube Goldberg contraption" that would have been difficult to set off.

"That does not mean that the bomb's not deadly," Cavanaugh said. Someone close by could be hurt or killed. "But it's not a very reliable working system, a fusing and firing system, at all," he said.

The question of who was behind the failed bomb attempt was the subject of scrutiny Monday.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said investigators have some good leads, but he declined to elaborate. Kelly said it was too early to say whether the attempt was carried out by a lone person, international terrorists, or any other type of network.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud appeared on a video released less than 24 hours after the attempt, claiming Taliban fighters were prepared to inflict "extremely painful blows" in major U.S. cities. But a senior U.S. military official said Monday there is no credible evidence at the early stages of the investigation that the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the Times Square incident.

Another U.S. official with direct awareness of the latest U.S. understanding of the incident said the Pakistani group has never shown "trans-national capabilities" like other groups, such as al Qaeda. But such a possibility is "not something one can rule out at this early stage," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Pakistan's Taliban movement has been linked to a 2008 plot to blow up subway stations in the Spanish city of Barcelona, and at least two of the 11 men convicted in the plot came to Barcelona from Pakistan, Spanish prosecutors said.

One counterintelligence official told CNN there was no evidence of any communications among terrorist organizations overseas about the device after Saturday night's attempt.

"People overseas were not giving high fives ... or saying anything about the bomb not working," the official said. "There is no indication that there was that kind of tie."

Cavanaugh said the bomber could have been "internationally inspired," but the device showed little sign that a group like al Qaeda was behind it.

"Their bombs would be better funded, better fused, better materials, better knowledge," he said.

UPDATES: 05-03-10

The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/nyregion/04bomb.html?hp

May 3, 2010
S.U.V. Holding Bomb Material Had Been Sold in Cash Deal
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, AL BAKER and MICHAEL WILSON

The 1993 Nissan Pathfinder rigged to blow up in Times Square on Saturday night was recently sold by its registered owner for cash, with no paperwork involved, a person briefed on the investigation said on Monday afternoon.

The transaction occurred weeks ago in Connecticut, and the registered owner told investigators that they could not recall the name of the person to whom he sold the vehicle, according to the person who had been briefed.

The police and F.B.I. investigators interviewed the owner of the Pathfinder Sunday night, and do not consider that person to be a suspect in the case, the police said.

Nonetheless, the provenance of the Pathfinder, tracked down by vehicle identification numbers stamped on its engine block and axle, as well as the details of its sale, represents a significant advancement in the investigation, the authorities said.

At the same time, investigators continued studying surveillance video from dozens of city cameras and unknown numbers of business and tourist cameras recorded Saturday night, when the S.U.V. was found on West 45th Street. The police also planned to release footage of a man running north on Broadway at the time that a fire broke out in the Pathfinder, said Raymond W. Kelly, the New York City police commissioner.

It is unclear whether the running man is the same one previously identified as a person of interest in the case, a white man who appeared to be in his 40s walking away from the area through Shubert Alley, which runs between 44th and 45th Streets, as he looked at least twice over his shoulder and pulled off a shirt, revealing a red T-shirt underneath. Mr. Kelly said the police wanted to speak to that man, but acknowledged that he might be innocent. “He was taking his shirt off, but it was a warm day,” he said. “But this happened just around the time that the pops start to go off inside the car.”

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seemed optimistic in comments he made Monday morning. “I think that we have made really substantial progress,” Mr. Holder told reporters. “We have some good leads.”

The contents of the Pathfinder — a tidy arsenal every bit as dangerous as it appeared to be amateurish in its design and execution — included gasoline, fireworks, analog alarm clocks and propane tanks, the police said. Eight bags of fertilizer found inside a metal gun locker were not explosive, the police said, and the fuse on the bomb appears to have ignited part of the vehicle’s interior, drawing the attention of two street vendors, who alerted a mounted police officer. Had the bomb exploded, it “would have caused casualties, a significant fireball,” said Mr. Kelly.

The materials will be sent to the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico for analysis, Mr. Kelly said in an interview Monday morning with WCBS Radio. “They’ve got the top laboratory in the world to do these sorts of examinations, and we’ll keep some samples here,” he said.

On “Today,” Janet Napolitano said it was premature to label any person or group as suspect. “Right now, every lead has to be pursued,” she said. “I caution against premature decisions one way or the other.” The authorities continued efforts on Monday to determine whether overseas terrorists were behind the failed bombing. The White House condemned the attempt as an act of terrorism, but stopped short of labeling it domestic or foreign. “I think anybody that has the type of material that they had in a car in Times Square, I would say that that was intended to terrorize, absolutely,” said Robert Gibbs, a spokesman. Federal and local officials have said there is no evidence to support a claim of responsibility issued Sunday by a Pakistani Taliban group.

While the authorities said they were treating the failed bombing — described as a “one-off” by Ms. Napolitano — as a potential terrorist attack, they said there was no evidence of a continued threat to the city.

Additional patrols are in place in Midtown, Mr. Kelly said. Detectives conducted what is known as a “24-hour canvass” on Sunday night and Monday morning. The police also planned to visit nearby businesses that were closed over the weekend to review footage from their cameras.

The Pathfinder was brought to a forensics center in Jamaica, Queens, where investigators were scouring it for DNA evidence and hairs, fibers and fingerprints. No fingerprints had been found as of Sunday night, officials said. FBI agents and detectives from the Joint Terrorist Task Force were also trying to determine where the three canisters of propane and two red plastic five-gallon containers of gasoline in the Pathfinder had been purchased.

The gun locker, which weighed about 75 pounds empty and upward of 200 pounds with the eight bags of fertilizer in it, could provide important clues because it can probably be more easily traced than many of the other items found in the S.U.V. “There are lots of different fertilizers that are out there,” Mr. Kelly said, emphasizing that this particular fertilizer did not appear to be explosive.

The weight of the locker and the material inside raised questions as to whether it might have required more than one person to load it into the vehicle.

The owner of the Pathfinder was identified through the SUV.’s VIN, which had been stripped from the car’s dashboard but was stamped on other car parts, like the engine block and axle.

The license plate on the SUV was connected to a different vehicle that is awaiting repairs in Stratford, Conn., where FBI agents and the local police awoke the owner of the repair shop at 3 a.m. Sunday. The shop owner, Wayne LeBlanc, who runs Kramer’s Used Auto Parts, said the authorities had seized a black Ford F-150 pickup truck. “We’re trying to help them identify who took the plates,” he said.

The SUV had no E-ZPass, but license plate readers and cameras at tollbooths in the New York region are being checked to determine where the car entered Manhattan, one official said.

Most of the ingredients of the explosive device could have been bought at a home supply store. The canisters of propane were similar to those used for barbecue grills. The firecrackers were consumer-grade M-88s sold legally in some states, including Pennsylvania.

The device was found in the back of the SUV, with the gasoline cans closest to the back seat and the gun locker behind them. The fertilizer was in clear plastic bags bearing the logo of a store that the police declined to identify. The wires from battery-powered fluorescent clocks ran into the gun locker, where a metal pressure-cooker pot contained a thicket of wires and more M-88s, Mr. Kelly said. “It was believed that the timers would ignite the can of explosives, and that would cause the five-gallon cans to go on fire and then explode the propane tanks and have some effect on that rifle box,” Mr. Kelly said.

The authorities said they were studying hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from 82 cameras mounted from 34th Street to 51st Street between Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue. The police and F.B.I. officials were also investigating a 911 call placed around 4 a.m. Sunday that described the failed bombing as a diversion before a bigger explosion, two law enforcement officials said, although Mr. Kelly said there was no record of that call.

About the two vendors...

Vendors Who Alerted Police Called Heroes
The New York Times

May 2, 2010
Vendors Who Alerted Police Called Heroes
By COREY KILGANNON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Even in Times Square, where little seems unusual, the Nissan Pathfinder parked just off Broadway on the south side of 45th Street — engine running, hazard lights flashing, driver nowhere to be found — looked suspicious to the sidewalk vendors who regularly work this area.

And it was the keen eyes of at least two of them — both disabled Vietnam War veterans who say they are accustomed to alerting local police officers to pickpockets and hustlers — that helped point the authorities to the Pathfinder, illegally and unusually parked next to their merchandise of inexpensive handbags and $2.99 “I Love NY” T-shirts.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, the vendors — Lance Orton and Duane Jackson, who both served during the Vietnam War and now rely on special sidewalk vending privileges for disabled veterans — said they told nearby officers about the Pathfinder, which had begun filling with smoke and then emitted sparks and popping sounds.

Over the next several hours, numerous firefighters and police officers — from patrol officers to those in specialized units — all did their part in minimizing the potential damage and handling a volatile situation. And on Sunday night, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg honored one of the officers, Wayne Rhatigan, by taking him to dinner in Times Square.

But in a city hungry for heroes, the spotlight first turned to the vendors. Mr. Orton, a purveyor of T-shirts, ran from the limelight early Sunday morning as he spurned reporters’ questions while gathering his merchandise on a table near where the Pathfinder was parked.

When asked if he was proud of his actions, Mr. Orton, who said he had been selling on the street for about 20 years, replied: “Of course, man. I’m a veteran. What do you think?”

Mr. Jackson, on the other hand, embraced his newfound celebrity, receiving an endless line of people congratulating him while he sold cheap handbags, watches and pashmina scarves all day Sunday.

He told and retold his story to tourists, reporters and customers: how he heard the “pop, pop, pop” coming from the vehicle, and then detected “the smell of a cherry bomb or firecracker or something.”

“There are a bunch of us disabled vets selling here, and we’re used to being vigilant because we all know that freedom isn’t free,” said Mr. Jackson, 58, of Buchanan, N.Y.

“All of us vets here are the eyes and ears for the cops,” he said. “Whether it’s three-card monte games or thieves, we know the cops here by first name — we have their cell numbers,” said Mr. Jackson, who said that he had been a street vendor many years.

He spoke of his time in the Vietnam War — he served in the Navy from 1970 to 1973 aboard the aircraft carrier Ranger — and how as a street vendor he tended to a table near the World Trade Center during both the bombing in 1993 and the terrorist attack in 2001.

Officer Rhatigan was reserved about his role. He told reporters of the team effort involved — he referred to “guys with bomb suits” as “incredible heroes” — and recalled his first thoughts as he approached the Pathfinder.

He said the vehicle “reeked of gunpowder” and seemed oddly abandoned — “a little bit more than just a parked car with a cigarette in the ashtray.”

“It was just a combined effort of everybody,” he added. “That’s what we do.”

The first firefighters who arrived were responding to a report of a car fire at the site, but realized upon arrival that explosives could be in the vehicle, said Tom Meara, a battalion chief, who was at the scene.

Lt. Mike Barvels of Engine Company 54, also at the scene, said firefighters moved people away and readied fire hoses, but then decided to leave the vehicle untouched since the popping and sparking indicated the possible presence of a bomb.

“We took a defensive position and cleared people away,” Lieutenant Barvels said.

On 45th Street on Sunday, tourists seemed aware of the vendors’ role in alerting the police. Mr. Orton was not working at his usual spot, but Mr. Jackson was.

At his vending table, one tourist, Wayne Jackson, a self-described born-again Christian from Saskatchewan, prayed with Mr. Jackson for several minutes and asked God to “alert us to more attempts on this brave country.”

Several police officers, in bulletproof vests, shook the vendor’s hand. A woman with a British accent rushed up and said: “Are you the one who saved us? Thank you.”

“It could have been a lot worse,” Mr. Jackson told a bank of television cameras and then turned to say to a customer, “That’s $8 on the watches.”

As for Mr. Orton, he rested on Sunday at a relative’s house, leaving others to talk on his behalf. “When he was in Vietnam, he said they had to make decisions and judgments from their gut, from their own feelings,” said Miriam Cintron, the mother of Mr. Orton’s son. “His instinct was telling him something’s not right. I guess he was right.”

She said Mr. Orton would mediate disputes between the police and other vendors, and when something did not look right, he would alert the police. “He always said, ‘Downtown is where they’re going to come to, and I’m going to be right there,’ ” Ms. Cintron said.

When Mr. Orton left Times Square about 7 a.m. on Sunday, he did so to a hero’s reception. As he walked down the street, employees from Junior’s restaurant stood outside applauding him. He briefly entered the restaurant before heading toward 44th Street.

Using a cane and wearing a white fedora, Mr. Orton limped away and hopped a cab home to the Bronx, but not before repeating a terror-watch mantra: “See something, say something.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/nyregion/03vendor.html?hpw

UPDATE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/nyregion/03timessquare.html?hp

May 2, 2010
Police Pursue Video Leads in Times Sq.

By AL BAKER, WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Police and federal agents on Sunday were reviewing surveillance footage that shows a possible suspect in the failed Times Square car bombing, describing him as a white man in his 40s who was walking away from the area where the vehicle was parked, looking furtively over his shoulder and removing a layer of clothing, officials said.

Investigators were examining eight bags of an unknown, granular substance that was packed into a gun locker found in the vehicle, a dark green Nissan Pathfinder. A police bomb squad used an exploding charge to open the 75-pound locker on Sunday afternoon, discovering the substance and a metal pot containing a thicket of wires and M-88 firecrackers.

The substance, described by Raymond Kelly, police commissioner, as having the look and feel of fertilizer, raises the possibility that explosive materials were contained in the bomb, although Mr. Kelly said investigators are still describing the device as incendiary.

“We were lucky it didn’t detonate,” Mr. Kelly said at a news briefing on Sunday. “In my judgment, it would have caused casualties, a significant fireball. I’m told the vehicle itself would have been cut in half.”

Investigators have still not determined a motive in the failed attack, and Mr. Kelly said there was no evidence to support a claim of responsibility by a Pakistani Taliban group. Federal authorities said the incident appeared to be an isolated one, and that there was no evidence of an ongoing threat to the city.

The authorities said they are reviewing hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from the area, including images of the unidentified man captured by a tourist who was in Times Square on Saturday evening.

Officials also said they knew the name of the Pathfinder’s listed owner, but they declined to make the name public. The license plate on the rear of the Pathfinder was registered to a different vehicle, later located at a Connecticut repair shop.

A street vendor spotted smoke coming from the Pathfinder, which was parked on West 45th Street just off Broadway, around 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers from the iconic square on an unseasonably warm weekend night. A large swath of Midtown was closed for much of the evening and several hotels, including a portion of the Marriott Marquis, were evacuated; the streets and hotels have since reopened.

A bomb squad discovered several common incendiary materials inside the vehicle, including three canisters of propane, similar to those used for barbecue grills, two red plastic five-gallon cans of gasoline, and a bag of consumer-grade M-88 firecrackers, along with the 55-inch tall gun locker.

The Pathfinder was towed by police to a forensic facility in Jamaica, Queens, where investigators are scouring it for fingerprints and other DNA evidence, such as skin cells, saliva, blood or hair follicles. No prints have yet been found, officials said, but the analysis is still in its early stages.

Consumer-grade fireworks, resembling a model known as M-80s, were found taped around the outside of the gasoline cans, according to several people briefed on the contents of the car. Two clocks with batteries, including one that resembled a child’s toy, were connected to the device by small wires.

Investigators believe that the fuses on the firecrackers had been lit, but they did not explode, the people said. The burning fuses apparently ignited a portion of the car’s interior, causing a small fire that filled the inside of the car with smoke, one law enforcement official said.

Another official said that the popping noises heard by a firefighter as he approached the vehicle may have been made by the fireworks failing to fully detonate.

On Sunday, police and F.B.I. officials were also investigating a 911 call placed at around 4 a.m. on Sunday, several officials said. The caller, who one official said sounded intelligent, admonished the 911 dispatcher not to interrupt him until he was finished and then said there would be a massive explosion soon and the car in Times Square was only a diversion.

The call came from a payphone at West 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue, which detectives have since dusted for fingerprints, the officials said.

It remained unclear what link, if any, existed between the caller and the failed car bomb from hours earlier, the officials said.

The incident unfolded on Saturday as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly attended the black-tie White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington. At the event, Mr. Kelly repeatedly left the ballroom to receive updates from his deputies in New York, and he briefed Mr. Bloomberg several times.

As the seriousness of the threat became apparent, the two cut short their evening plans and flew back to Manhattan, arriving around 12:30 a.m. Mr. Bloomberg addressed reporters at the late-night press conference in his formal attire of a tuxedo and red bow tie.

According to city officials, the dark green Nissan SUV first appeared on video surveillance cameras at 6:28 p.m., driving west on 45th Street.

Moments later, a T-shirt vendor on the sidewalk saw smoke coming out of vents near the back seat of the S.U.V., which was now parked awkwardly at the curb with its engine running and its hazard lights on. The vendor called to a mounted police officer, the mayor said, who smelled gunpowder when he approached the S.U.V. and called for assistance. The police began evacuating Times Square, starting with businesses along Seventh Avenue, including a Foot Locker store and a McDonald’s.

Police officers from the emergency service unit and firefighters flooded the area and were troubled by the hazard lights and running engine, and by the fact that the S.U.V. was oddly angled in the street. At this point, a firefighter from Ladder 4 reported hearing several “pops” from within the vehicle. The police also learned that the Pathfinder had the wrong license plates on it.

Members of the Police Department’s bomb squad donned protective gear, broke the Pathfinder’s back windows and sent in a “robotic device” to “observe” it, said Mr. Browne, the police spokesman.

The license plates were registered to another vehicle — a Ford pickup truck that was taken to a junkyard near Bridgeport, Conn., within the last two weeks, according to a law enforcement official. The previous owner of the Ford was interviewed Saturday night by the F.B.I., but it did not appear he was regarded as a suspect. Still, the junkyard was considered a primary target of the initial investigation.

The SUV’s standard vehicle identification number had been removed, and investigators were examining the vehicle to see if the number appeared elsewhere.

Around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, the T-shirt vendor who first alerted the police returned to the scene, along with several other vendors whom he worked with.

“I’m fed up,” said the vendor, who declined to give his name, but said that he was a Vietnam veteran. “We’ve been up since 6 a.m. of yesterday morning.”

The vendor, who wore a white fedora, had a limp and walked with a cane, was swarmed by television cameras as he tried to make his way to a taxicab on 44th Street.

As he got into the taxi, he was asked by a reporter what he had to say to New Yorkers.

“See something, say something,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg plans to treat the mounted officer who discovered the car bomb to a dinner on Sunday night at a restaurant in Times Square, to demonstrate that the area is safe and has returned to a state of normalcy. They will eat at Blue Fin, at the W Hotel on 47th Street, around 7 p.m.

UPDATE FROM CNN - 6:03PM ET

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/02/times.square.closure/index.html?hpt=T1

Police may have video of possible car bomb suspect
May 2, 2010 6:03 p.m. EDT

Tune in to "Larry King Live" tonight for the latest developments in the bomb attempt in Times Square. A special two-hour "Larry King Live" starts at 8 ET tonight.

(CNN) -- Law enforcement officials are examining video that may have captured the image of a suspect in the attempted Times Square car bombing, New York's police commissioner said Sunday.

The video "shows a white male in his 40s, in Shubert Alley, looking back in the direction of West 45th Street," Commissioner Ray Kelly told a news conference, adding that the man looked around in a "furtive manner."

"He also was seen shedding a dark-colored shirt, revealing a red one underneath. He put the darker one into a bag that he was carrying," he said.

The video was captured about a half block from where police said a Nissan Pathfinder containing bomb-making materials was found Saturday evening on West 45th Street in the city's iconic Times Square area.

Kelly said detectives are traveling to Pennsylvania to interview a tourist who believes he may have caught the suspect's image on camera.

iReport: Were you there? Share pics, videos

Also Sunday, Kelly said an NYPD bomb squad blew open a large gun locker found in the Pathfinder, revealing eight bags of an "unknown substance" and a pressure-cooker-type metal pot containing a "bird's nest of wires and M-88 firecrackers."

Kelly said New York's Department of Environmental Protection is working to identify the substance, which he later said may be fertilizer, describing it as granular in nature.

The gun locker was one of many items found in the rear of the Pathfinder after a T-shirt vendor alerted a nearby police officer to smoke coming out of the vehicle.

Officials removed from the SUV three propane tanks weighing between 15 and 17 pounds, Kelly said, comparing them to the kind typically used on backyard barbecues. One of the tanks had more M-88 firecrackers attached to the side, Kelly said, some of which detonated inside the vehicle.

Also found in the vehicle's back seat were two full five-gallon gasoline containers, Kelly said. And between those gasoline containers was a "16-ounce can filled with between 20 and 30 M-88 devices," he said, adding that two clocks on the floor of the vehicle's back seat were connected by wires to the can containing the firecrackers, and possibly to the gun locker as well.

Read more about the discovery of the car bomb

Had the car bomb detonated, Kelly said it would have caused casualties and a "significant fireball."

"I'm told the vehicle itself would have at least been cut in half," he said. "You have large numbers of pedestrians in that area, so, yeah, we were lucky that it didn't detonate."

Officials did not immediately know how the bomb would have been detonated, but Kelly offered a few hints into its design.

"(We believe) the timers would ignite the can of explosives and that would cause the five-gallon cans (of gasoline) to go on fire and then explode the propane tanks and have some effect on that rifle box," said Kelly, cautioning that the substance within the gun locker is still unknown.

Times Square evacuation captured on iPhone

Meanwhile, Times Square returned to its bustling self Sunday, even as questions remained about the source of the attempted car bombing.

In a purported Pakistani Taliban video that surfaced on the internet Sunday, the group took responsibility for the foiled attack, though Kelly said Sunday afternoon that "we have no evidence to support this claim."

The group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, says in the video that the attack was revenge for their leaders killed by American forces, and for U.S. and NATO interference in that part of the world.

Another claim of responsibility e-mailed by an individual to a local New York news station is being investigated, Kelly said.

Kelly called the foiled attack "a sober reminder that New York is clearly a target of people who want to come here and do us harm."

President Obama, speaking from Venice, Louisiana, where he was monitoring a massive oil slick creeping toward the Gulf Coast, promised "to see that justice is done" in the failed car bombing.

"Since last night, my national security teams have been taking every step necessary to ensure that our state and local partners have the full support and cooperation of the federal government," he said. "We're going to do what's necessary to protect the American people, to determine who's behind this potentially deadly act and to see that justice is done."

In an advisory sent to local and national law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security wrote, "There is no information to indicate that this was anything more than a single incident. Additionally, there is no reporting suggesting targeting of other specific locations."

Kelly said following the discovery of the Pathfinder, police officers did a search for secondary devices in the area and found none.

The investigation was focusing on examinations of the Nissan Pathfinder where the attempted homemade bomb was placed. Kelly said the vehicle is being combed for fingerprints, hair, fibers and other evidence that may help identify who was responsible, and hours of surveillance footage in the area were being monitored for possible clues.

Another angle of the investigation involved the license plates found on the vehicle.

Authorities said that the Connecticut license plate on the front of Pathfinder did not belong to that car, but to a pickup truck that was last reported at a junkyard.

Following that lead, police were spotted at an automobile used parts company, Kramer's Used Auto Parts of Stratford, Connecticut.

Kelly said that the plate found on the rear of the Pathfinder was also registered to a different vehicle, which was located in an auto repair shop in Connecticut, where its matching plate was also found.

The Pathfinder's vehicle identification number had been removed from the dashboard, but officials recovered it from another location on the car, a federal law enforcement official told CNN.

Kelly said officials have identified the registered owner of the Pathfinder, but were not yet making his name public.

Watch police evacuate McDonald's: 'Pack your food up! Let's go!'

The lockdown of the popular New York attraction began after a T-shirt vendor -- a Vietnam veteran -- saw the SUV, found it suspicious and alerted a mounted police officer.

The officer peered inside and noticed a box with smoke coming out and smelled gunpowder. Authorities immediately evacuated the area.