WASHINGTON/KARACHI: A former financial analyst has admitted attempting to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s Times Square, authorities have said.
According to the government’s legal complaint, Shahzad, 30, confessed to buying a four-wheel-drive vehicle, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it to Times Square, where he tried to detonate it.
He also confessed to receiving explosives training in Waziristan, a tribal region in Pakistan where the Taliban is suspected of operating, according to the complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court.
“Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country,” Eric Holder, the US attorney-general, said in Washington.
Holder said Shahzad was talking to investigators, providing them with valuable information. A planned court hearing on Tuesday was cancelled in part because of his continuing co-operation.
‘No-fly list’
Shahzad, who became a naturalised US citizen last year, was arrested on Monday night after being taken off a plane that was about to fly from New York to Dubai.
The authorities had placed him on a “no-fly” list hours before his arrest, but the plane he was on had already taxied away from a gate at John F Kennedy airport and had to be ordered to turn around.
Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said that had the plane had taken off there were powers “to order the plane to turn around and come back”.
The son of a retired Pakistani senior air force officer said he returned from Pakistan in February, telling an immigration official that he had been visiting his parents there for five months and had left his wife behind.
In Pakistan on Tuesday, intelligence officials said several people had been detained in connection with the case.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Pakistan, said Shahzad’s father-in-law was one of the five arrested in Karachi and Faisalabad.
His parents’ house was located in Peshawar but apparently the parents left once they heard about their son’s arrest, our correspondent said.
‘American conspiracy’
Kifyat Ali, the cousin of Shahzad’s father, Baharul Haq, a retired air vice-marshal and deputy director general of the civil aviation authority, told reporters outside a two-storey home in an upscale part of Peshawar that the family had yet to be officially informed of Shahzad’s arrest in the US.
“This is a conspiracy so the [Americans] can bomb more Pashtuns,” Ali said, referring to a major ethnic group in Peshawar and the nearby tribal areas of Pakistan and southwest Afghanistan.
Ali said Shahzad often stayed in Peshawar when he travelled from the US, and “was never linked to any political or religious party here”.
In Bridgeport, Connecticut, investigators from the FBI searched Shahzad’s home, removing bags of potential evidence
Barack Obama, the US president, said “hundreds of lives” may have been saved on Saturday night by the quick action of ordinary citizens and law enforcement officials who raised the alarm about the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder rigged with a bomb made of petrol, propane and fireworks and parked on a bustling street in Times Square.
“As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorised. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated,” Obama said.
Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, warned against violence against Muslims in the city following the arrest.
“We will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers,” he said.
Pakistan arrests relatives of NY bomb suspect
In the wake of the arrest of a US citizen of Pakistani origin in the United States, Pakistani law-enforcement agencies swung into action here on Tuesday and picked up two suspects – a friend and the father-in-law of Faisal Shahzad.
The friend Tausef and father-in-law Iftikhar Mian were picked up by intelligence personnel from a house in Block N, North Nazimabad, sources privy to the development told Dawn.
According to the sources, Faisal’s immediate family, his wife Huma Mian and two children are also in Pakistan, but it could not be confirmed if his wife has also been detained.
The sources said that Faisal Shahzad had come to Karachi in 2009. He is son of Air Vice Marshal (retd) Baharul Haq, who retired in early 90’s. Later, he got a senior post in the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and his family moved to Karachi, the sources said.
Air Vice Marshal (retd) Baharul Haq has two sons. The elder son is settled in Canada.
Faisal had been living in the US. His father lives in Hayatabad area of Peshawar.
Local police officials, however, expressed disassociation with the developments and said they had not received any orders in connection with Faisal Shahzad.
“We didn’t get any order, but at our end we have collected information which confirms that a young man by the name of Faisal Shahzad did arrive in Karachi in April 2009 and left in August the same year. We have received information that some of his relatives live somewhere in North Nazimabad and police are trying to locate the house,” Capital City Police Chief Waseem Ahmed told Dawn.
Faisal Ali adds from Lahore: Police, with the help of intelligence personnel, picked up a few suspects from different parts of Punjab in connection with the recovery of explosives from a vehicle in New York.
Informed sources in the Punjab police told Dawn that the arrests had been made in Lahore and Rawalpindi.
Pakistan assures US of full cooperation
The government on Tuesday assured the United States it would fully cooperate in the investigation into a botched terrorist attempt at Times Square allegedly by Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen of Pakistani origin.
The assurance was given to US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson who visited the Foreign Office.
However, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the US authorities had not made any request to Pakistani authorities about information relating to Faisal Shahzad.
“We are receiving sketchy information about the suspect through media. Until and unless we are provided proper information through proper channels, I cannot verify the involvement of any Pakistani citizen in the New York attack plot,” he told media at the Parliament House.
The minister made it clear that Pakistan would extend full cooperation to US authorities if they sought any help.
“Let me reiterate the strong resolve of Pakistan that no one would be allowed to use Pakistani soil for terrorism in any part of the world,” he said.
Mr Malik said the move could be a conspiracy hatched against Pakistan with nefarious designs. However, he said if any Pakistani was found involved in any act of terrorism, strict action would be taken against him.