ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK: Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud vowed to attack major U.S. cities in two purported new videos released months after his reported killing in a U.S. missile strike, as investigators were combing through evidence on Monday in the hunt for suspects in a failed car bombing in New York’s busy Times Square, after President Barack Obama vowed to track down the perpetrators.
“The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in the major cities,” said Mehsud, who was seen flanked by two armed and masked men in the video released by the SITE and IntelCenter monitoring groups.
The video is the first showing Mehsud since January and was issued on the heels of a claim by his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militant group that it was behind the attempted car bombing in New York’s Time Square on Saturday.
Mehsud was reported to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in northwestern Pakistan on Jan. 14, but his militant group denied his death and Pakistani intelligence officials said last week that he had survived the attack.
“Propaganda”
The Islamist leader, who took over leadership of the TTP last August, poured scorn on reports of his death, describing them as an “open lie and propaganda by the kuffar (non-believers)”.
“Inshaallah (God willing) very soon in some days or a month’s time, the Muslim ummah (world) will see the fruits of most successful attacks of our fedayeen in USA,” Mehsud said.
He made similar remarks in an audio message in another TTP video Monday that was apparently recorded on Apr. 19 and features Mehsud’s face next to a map of the United States showing multiple explosions across the country.
IntelCenter, a U.S.-based group that monitors Islamist websites, said it believed all the TTP videos issued since the New York car bomb scare were credible.
“It is our assessment that this threat is credible and that there is a high threat of further attacks like the NYC attack during the coming days and weeks ahead,” it said.
U.S. officials had initially dismissed the TTP claim of responsibility.
“There is no evidence that this is tied in with al-Qaeda or any other big terrorist organization,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Obama vowed to track down the perpetrators as security forces began scrutinizing evidence from a Nissan Pathfinder SUV abandoned late Saturday in the theatre district with a large, spluttering homemade bomb inside.
“We’re going to do whatever is necessary to protect the American people, to determine who’s behind this potentially deadly act and to see that justice is done,” said Obama.
If the TTP claim — made in a video broadcast on YouTube — was authenticated, it would be the first attack by the militant group against a target in the United States.
TTP leadership
Mehsud assumed leadership of the TTP, which is blamed for the deaths of thousands of people in attacks across Pakistan, after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone strike in August last year.
The January U.S. missile attack was launched after Mehsud claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing by a Jordanian double agent on a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan in December that killed seven CIA agents.
Islamabad has offered a reward of 50 million rupees (about $590,000) for information leading to the militant’s capture, dead or alive.
Mehsud, believed to be aged about 30, said the TTP would attack the United States “for having martyred many of our great Muslim leaders including Baitullah Mehsud and many respected brothers from al-Qaeda,” SITE reported.
“Our fedayeen have penetrated the terrorist America, we will give extremely painful blows to the fanatic America.”
Mehsud, bearded and with long hair, also warned members of NATO and other allies to abandon the United States, telling them: “You will face even worse humiliation, destruction and defeat than America itself.”
A Pentagon spokesman had said last week that it was unclear if Mehsud was dead or alive, but that he was no longer running the TTP.
“I certainly have seen no evidence that the person you speak of is operational today, or is executing or exerting authority over the Pakistan Taliban as he once did,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.
Pakistani Taliban claim failed NY bomb attack
Meanwhile The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attempted car bomb attack in New York’s Times Square, a statement on an Islamist website said on Sunday.
In 1 minute video allegedly released by the Pakistani Taliban, the group says the attack is revenge for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud and the recent killings of the top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq. Images of the slain militants are shown as an unidentified voice recites the message. English subtitles are at the bottom of the screen.
The video was uncovered Sunday by the U.S.-based SITE intelligence Group, which monitors militant websites.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.
Al-Qaeda’s Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri — also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the purported head of its local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, were killed last month.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the two were found dead in a hole in the ground inside a house after it was surrounded and stormed by troops.
A car bomb was defused in New York’s Times Square on Saturday evening. U.S. police found it in a sport utility vehicle when the area was packed with tourists and theatre-goers.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration was considering all possibilities regarding the motivation behind the bomb scare in Times Square.
Failed attack
Investigators raced Sunday to find who attempted to detonate an “amateurish” but potentially deadly car bomb in New York’s Times Square, combing through a wealth of clues from fingerprints to surveillance video.
Thanks to a T-shirt vendor and Vietnam War veteran who saw smoke coming from the explosives laden vehicle, police were able to foil a fiery explosion in the city’s Broadway theater district that could have been devastating on a crowded Saturday night.
“We are very lucky… (to) avoid what could have been a very deadly event,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg told an impromptu press conference early Sunday.
Bomb squad officers discovered propane gas tanks, fireworks and timing devices loaded into the back of the sports utility vehicle after the T-shirt seller alerted authorities around 6:30 pm (2230 GMT) on Saturday.
Officials said it was the work of terrorists, but who—whether homegrown extremists, al-Qaeda or someone else — was not immediately known.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the FBI, the New York police and the government’s Terrorism Task Force were probing the “potential terrorist attack,” poring over the vehicle and surveillance camera video for leads.
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