cogitoergosum
2010-05-04 09:00:36 UTC
Terror War I: Sid Harth
http://navanavonmilita.wordpress.com/terror-war-i-sid-harth/
Holder: Bomb suspect tried to fly to Dubai
U.S. citizen was arrested at New York’s JFK airport, attorney general
says
NYPD via AP
An image taken from a surveillance video released by police on Monday
shows a man, center, carrying a bag and walking away after removing
his shirt in New York City.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36929937#36929937
May 4: Authorities arrest Connecticut man in connection with attempted
bombing in New York City. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
msnbc tv
Slideshow
Car bomb found
Police diffuse a crudely made car bomb found in a dark Nissan SUV
parked in Times Square.
NEW YORK - Authorities arrested a U.S. citizen in connection with the
failed bombing attempt in New York's Times Square as he tried to leave
the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday.
Faisal Shahzad was arrested at 11:45 p.m. Monday night by Customs and
Border Protection agents as he attempted to board an Emirates airlines
flight to Dubai at New York's JFK airport, Holder and other officials
said.
"It is clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill
Americans," Holder said.
Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Pakistan, was
accused of driving a car bomb into Times Square, authorities said. He
will appear in Manhattan Federal Court later on Tuesday.
Holder said the investigation was ongoing, and said that law
enforcement officials had gathered "significant additional evidence."
He urged Americans to remain vigilant.
"The American people should know that we are deploying every resource
available, and we will not rest until we have brought everyone
responsible to justice," Holder said.
Earlier, officials told The Associated Press that the suspect recently
returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife. The
officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the case was at a
sensitive stage.
Shahzad was being held in New York and couldn't be contacted. He has a
Shelton, Conn., address and a phone number listed there wasn't in
service. Investigators were searching his home.
Law enforcement officials said Shahzad bought the SUV that was parked
in Times Square on Saturday from a Connecticut man three weeks ago and
paid cash. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of
the sensitive nature of the case .
NBC's Pete Williams earlier reported the man's name was on an e-mail
that was sent to the seller of the car last month, as well as other
evidence suggesting he had a role in the attempted bombing.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on Monday that an FBI-led
terrorism task force has taken over the investigation of the failed
car bombing in Times Square because of indications it was connected to
international terrorism, a senior law enforcement source said.
The probe had been overseen by the New York Police Department.
Responsibility for it shifted to a Joint Terrorism Task Force as Obama
administration officials said the incident increasingly appears to
have been coordinated by more than one person in a plot with
international links, the Post reported on its Web site.
The White House, according to the Post, intensified its focus on the
failed bombing Saturday in New York City, in which explosives inside a
Nissan Pathfinder were set ablaze but failed to detonate at the busy
corner of Broadway and 45th Street. Emerging from a series of
briefings, several officials told the Post it was too early to rule
out any motive but said the sweeping investigation was turning up new
clues.
Sold for cash
A law enforcement official says the registered owner of the SUV used
in the botched bombing told investigators he sold it for cash three
weeks ago.
The official told The Associated Press that the Connecticut owner
questioned Sunday about what happened to the SUV says he sold the
vehicle to a stranger.
Officials continued to look into the history of the vehicle as one way
to crack the case. The vehicle identification number had been removed
from the Pathfinder's dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine and
axle, and investigators used it to find the owner of record.
Investigators tracked the license plates to a used auto parts shop in
Stratford, Conn., where they discovered the plates were connected to a
different vehicle.
They also spoke to the owner of an auto sales shop in nearby
Bridgeport because a sticker on the Pathfinder indicated the SUV had
been sold by his dealership. Owner Tom Manis said there was no match
between the identification number the officers showed him and any
vehicle he sold.
Hundreds of hours of video
In New York, police and FBI were examining hundreds of hours of video
from around the area and wanted to speak with a man in his 40s who was
videotaped shedding his shirt near the Pathfinder.
The video shows the man slipping down Shubert Alley and taking off his
shirt, revealing another underneath. In the same clip, he looks back
in the direction of the smoking vehicle and puts the first shirt in a
bag.
They traveled to Pennsylvania for video shot by a tourist of a
different person and were evaluating the tape and determining whether
to make it public.
In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said
Saturday's attempted bombing was a terrorist act.
Investigators had not ruled out a range of possible motives, and
federal officials said they hadn't narrowed down whether the bomber
was homegrown or foreign.
One federal law enforcement official, according to the Washington
Post, cautioned that, while investigators are examining unspecified
international communications that may be connected to the attack,
"that doesn't get you to an international plot, a multi-organizational
plot."
"We're just not there," the official told the Post.
Another U.S. official, recounting a conversation with intelligence
officials, was quoted in the Washington Post: "Don't be surprised if
you find a foreign nexus. ... They're looking at some telltale signs,
and they're saying it's pointing in that direction."
Holder: Bomb suspect tried to fly to DubaiU.S. to disclose stockpiles
of nuclear weaponsTimes Square hero: ‘I wondered why nobody
noticed’Bomb’s ordinary ingredients a deadly threatJudge: Militia
members can leave jail until trialJudge delays trial of American
terror suspectsPakistani Taliban chief promises U.S. attacksNewsweek:
Feds feared multicity attacksVideo shows Pakistan Taliban boss
aliveBomb scare alters Pittsburgh Marathon courseSecurity Section
Front
‘Every lead has to be pursued’
Early Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told NBC's
"Today" show that no suspects or theories had been ruled out.
"Right now, every lead has to be pursued," she said.
And investigators had not ruled out a range of possible motives.
Barry Mawn, who led New York's FBI office at the time of the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks and has since retired, said suspects could
range from those sympathetic to the interest of U.S. enemies to a
domestic terrorist to a disgruntled employee who worked in Times
Square.
The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility for the bomb in
three videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups
said. New York officials said police have no evidence to support the
claims.
The SUV was parked near offices of Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy
Central. The network recently aired an episode of the animated show
"South Park" that the group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted
the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume.
The date of the botched bombing — May 1 — was International Workers
Day, a traditional date for political demonstrations, and thousands
had rallied for immigration reform that day in New York.
Security had been also been tight in the city in advance of a visit to
the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a
nuclear weapons conference.
AP
This still photo released by the New York City Police Department on
Sunday shows one of the alarm clocks found in the Nissan Pathfinder
that was used in the attempted attack on Times Square.
Police said the bomb could have produced "a significant fireball" and
sprayed shrapnel with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out
windows. The SUV was parked on a street lined with Broadway theaters
and restaurants and full of people out on a Saturday night.
The SUV was captured on video crossing an intersection at 6:28 p.m.
Saturday. Vendors pointed out the Pathfinder to police about two
minutes later. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening,
was shut down for 10 hours.
The explosive device had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-
ounce can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to
detonate the gas cans and set the propane afire in a chain reaction,
said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
A metal rifle cabinet placed in the cargo area was packed with
fertilizer, but NYPD bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile
enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate fertilizer used in
previous terrorist bombings.
The exact amount of fertilizer was unknown. Police estimated the
cabinet weighed 200 to 250 pounds when they pulled it from the
vehicle.
To experts in explosives, it seemed to be the work of someone who
really didn't know what they were doing.
Chris Falkenberg, president of Insite Security, which works with
Fortune 500 companies, said the device, as described by authorities,
"doesn't differ much at all from 'The Anarchist Cookbook'" — the
underground 1971 manual for homemade explosives.
He said revelations that the fertilizer used could not have exploded
suggested "this is amateur hour. My kids could build a better bomb
than this."
President Barack Obama telephoned handbag vendor Duane Jackson, 58, of
Buchanan, N.Y., on Monday to commend him for alerting authorities to
the smoking SUV. The White House said Obama thanked Jackson for his
vigilance and for acting quickly to prevent serious trouble.
NBC News' Pete Williams, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed
to this report.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36892505/ns/us_news-security/page/2/
Times Square hero breaks silence
Street vendor says he wonders why no one else noticed smoke
Video
Times Square bomb hero speaks
May 3: Lance Orton, a street vendor in New York City, alerted police
to the smoking SUV that turned out to be a failed car bomb. In an
exclusive interview with TODAY, he reveals what made him concerned.
Today show
By Mike Celizic
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 2:12 p.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010
Sometimes, people used to tell Lance Orton not to be such a busybody,
but the Vietnam veteran and Times Square T-shirt salesman can’t help
it. When he sees something wrong, he has to report it.
Nobody’s complaining about Orton now, not after he alerted a mounted
policeman when he noticed smoke coming from a parked SUV in New York
City Saturday evening. Inside the vehicle were the makings of a crude
firebomb — propane tanks, gasoline, fireworks and alarm-clock
detonators. The vendor is being hailed as a hero who may have saved
uncounted lives through his alertness.
“People take it lightly,” Orton told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira and Matt
Lauer on Monday. “I’ve had a few situations where I’ve told people
about things; they say, ‘That’s nothing.’ But you can’t take that
attitude.”
Orton was wounded in Vietnam and gets around with a cane. He said he
was sitting next to his wares when he saw a Nissan Pathfinder parked
with its emergency flashers on and its motor running. A small amount
of smoke was coming out of it.
Video
NYC mayor: ‘Exploring a lot of leads’
May 3: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg discusses with TODAY’s
Matt Lauer video that shows a man switching his shirt around the time
of the Times Square bomb scare.
Today show
The hero vendor said he didn’t see who got out of the vehicle because
of a performance on the other side of the street. “I was distracted by
the crowd,” he said.
Alerting authorities
But then he saw the vehicle. “I wondered why nobody noticed it,” he
said.
One of Orton’s helpers suggested calling 911. Orton said he pointed at
mounted police officer Wayne Rhatigan, who was on duty in Times
Square.
“There’s a patrolman right there on the horse. I asked one of my guys,
‘Go over there and grab that officer,’ ” Orton recalled. “He came over
on horseback. He saw what I did. It was steadily getting worse.”
When popping noises and flashing sparks came from the car, Rhatigan
quickly led police in, moving pedestrians to safety and clearing
traffic so that the fire department and bomb squad could neutralize
the bomb before it exploded.
“Whoever did this luckily did an amateur job,” Orton observed.
Brushing off interviews
Another vendor named Duane Jackson, 58, also noticed the smoking
vehicle and alerted police. Jackson ended up doing numerous interviews
and having dinner with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Officer Rhatigan at
a Times Square restaurant.
President Barack Obama also phoned Jackson to commend him for his
vigilance and for acting quickly.
Video
DHS not ruling out terrorism in bomb scare
May 3: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says it’s
premature to rule out any leads and that officials expect to know more
about the Times Square bomb scare in the coming hours and days.
Today show
Orton brushed off pleas for interviews and passed on dinner with the
mayor. He did agree to talk to TODAY, telling Lauer just before going
on the air, “I could have been here playing a harp this morning.”
Asked later how he felt, he said, “Glad to be here.”
Person of interest
Police have released a surveillance video showing a man who may be in
his mid-40s taking a shirt off a short distance from the SUV, which
was parked at West 45th Street and Broadway. He has a red shirt on
underneath. The man glances in the direction of the SUV and walks off.
Police have named the unidentified man as a person of interest.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, in an earlier
appearance on TODAY, said the man is not an official suspect. Although
New York police have said the bomb was not the work of the Taliban or
other foreign terrorists, Napolitano said nothing has been ruled out.
“Right now, every lead has to be pursued. I would caution against
premature decisions one way or another,” Napolitano said. “The
investigation now needs to take its course.”
“We’ve got to be very careful,” Bloomberg said. “There’s hundreds of
tapes and there’s millions of people who come through Times Square.”
Of the man in the surveillance video, the mayor spoke cautiously.
“Maybe he had something to do with it and maybe not.”
Read more: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36911051/ns/today-today_people/#ixzz0mwoDTk2D
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36911051/ns/today-today_people/
Bomb’s ordinary ingredients a deadly threat
‘Unsophisticated’ devices, like the one in Times Square, difficult to
detect
Brendan McDermid / Reuters
A NYPD officer in an bomb suit examines a Nissan Pathfinder sport
utility vehicle parked in New York's Times Square on Saturday.
View related photos Video
Video may show NYC bomb scare suspect
May 3: Investigators are eager to find a white man in his 40s seen on
surveillance video.
Today show
Video
DHS not ruling out terrorism in bomb scare
May 3: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says it’s
premature to rule out any leads and that officials expect to know more
about the Times Square bomb scare in the coming hours and days.
Today show
By Joby Warrick and Spencer S. Hsu
updated 8:55 a.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010
The would-be bomber who left his smoldering SUV in the heart of
Midtown Manhattan used the simplest of ingredients: gasoline cans,
propane tanks, the kind of ordinary black powder found in cheap
roadside fireworks.
But it was the simple nature of those components that made the
attempted bombing relatively easy to execute and nearly impossible to
detect, according to U.S. officials and terrorism experts. In that
way, they said, it was similar to a series of other failed terrorist
plots in recent months.
Both the Times Square bombmaker and the man who pleaded guilty in the
plot to bomb the New York subway system last fall used recipes that
required nothing more challenging than Internet research and a trip to
the hardware store or beauty supply shop. While both attempts failed,
the same kinds of simple ingredients have been linked to deadly
attacks in the past, former and current intelligence and law
enforcement officials said.
" 'Unsophisticated' can still cause a lot of pain and misery," said a
U.S. counterterrorism official who agreed to discuss the New York
attempt on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature
of the investigation.
Slipping past security
The official described the latest bungled bombing as a reminder of how
even a crudely constructed attack on an iconic American landmark can
slip past the unprecedented security measures implemented after Sept.
11, 2001.
"These events are so hard to detect in advance," the official said.
"If there were a foolproof way of finding people before they acted,
whether it's the [snipers] in D.C. or someone who puts a bomb in his
car . . . it has to be understood how very difficult this business
is."
For years, homeland security and FBI officials have warned about the
use of propane tanks, gas cylinders or other devices in vehicles. Such
warnings were based largely on intelligence gathered in Iraq, where
insurgents began deploying propane tanks in car bombs widely in 2007,
and on a 39-page al-Qaeda bombmaking memo recovered in 2004 that
advocated the use of materials from hardware stores or pharmacies.
Video
Times Square bomb hero speaks
May 3: Lance Orton, a street vendor in New York City, alerted police
to the smoking SUV that turned out to be a failed car bomb.
Today show
Long before the Iraq war, Timothy J. McVeigh blew up a federal
building in Oklahoma City in 1995 using a truck bomb consisting of
4,000 pounds of fuel oil and fertilizer.
Because bombmaking techniques require some time to master, the
recommended recipes have frequently fizzled, but just as often they
have been adopted by copycats and wannabes.
Two propane-based suitcase bombs were recovered from a failed attack
aboard a German train in 2006 that was attributed to a domestic group.
Three car bombs using propane and gas tanks packed with nails failed
to detonate in back-to-back attacks on London and Glasgow, Scotland,
in June 2007 that were carried out by a British-born Muslim doctor
radicalized over the war in Iraq.
Attacks on the London public transit system in July 2005 relied on
backpack bombs assembled from compounds found in nail-polish remover
and hair bleach. Similar compounds were developed by Najibullah Zazi,
the Denver airport shuttle driver trained by al-Qaeda who recently
pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb New York's subway system last
September.
Zazi received training in bombmaking in Pakistan, and terrorism
experts cautioned against underestimating the capacity of lone-wolf
operators to do significant damage.
"Often officials use the word 'amateurish,' when in fact the attempts
turn out to be more complex than first portrayed," said Bruce Hoffman,
a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University. "Even if the bomb
was amateurish, look at the target. New York has an image of being
tough on terrorists, but that wasn't enough to prevent someone from
putting a car bomb in the city's nerve center on a busy night."
Slideshow
Times Square targeted
Police defused a crudely made car bomb found in a SUV parked in New
York's Times Square.
more photos
It remained unclear late Sunday whether the Times Square bomber had
ties — ideological, practical or otherwise — to al-Qaeda or other
radical Islamic groups. While U.S. officials repeatedly cautioned
against presuming links to Muslim extremists, the failed attack came
against a surge of al-Qaeda-inspired plots on U.S. soil.
"From Fort Hood to the New York subway plot, terror at home
increasingly has a radicalized American face," said Bruce Riedel, a
former top counterterrorism official in the CIA. "We need to avoid a
panic-driven Islamophobic response, but we do need to analyze closely
these cases for insights into the radicalization process."
Frances Fragos Townsend, a top counterterrorism adviser in the George
W. Bush administration, said a successful campaign against al-Qaeda in
Pakistan has degraded the group's capability to launch another 9/11-
style attack, the "spectacular, big attack with multiple, simultaneous
events."
"But what that means is now you worry about the 'underwear bomber,'
and the Zazi case with backpack bombs on subway trains," she said.
Preventing such attacks is a harder challenge, one that requires well-
trained local police officers and a vigilant citizenry, Townsend said.
"Those are the people on the front lines when it comes to the
individual one-off type of attacks," she said.
Staff writer Greg Miller and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed
to this report.
Read more: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36906941/ns/us_news-washington_post/#ixzz0mwpvHzmr
© 2010 The Washington Post Company
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36906941/ns/us_news-washington_post/
Pakistani Taliban chief promises U.S. attacks
Video dated early April follows earlier claim for NYC bomb attempt
By NAHAL TOOSI, RYAN LUCAS
Associated Press Writers
updated 12:15 a.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's Taliban chief promised attacks on major U.S.
cities in a video apparently dated early April and released following
the weekend's car bomb attempt in New York City, a monitoring group
said Monday. It followed reports of another video in which the group
apparently tried to take credit for that attempted strike.
U.S. authorities have played down the potential connection between the
Pakistani militant network and the car bomb attempt in New York's
Times Square, saying the group does not have the global infrastructure
to carry out such a strike. However, the Pakistani Taliban are allied
with al-Qaida and other groups, which could expand their reach.
The latest video is about nine minutes long and features Hakimullah
Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban chief, according to IntelCenter, a U.S.-
based group that monitors militant media.
Mehsud does not specifically mention New York, but says he is speaking
on April 4 of this year, and promises that, "God willing, very soon in
some days or a month's time, the Muslim (community) will see the
fruits of most successful attacks of our fedayeen in USA."
"Fedayeen" usually refers to suicide bombers, which the car bomb
attempt in New York did not involve.
Mehsud refutes death
Mehsud also refutes earlier Pakistani and American claims that he died
in a U.S. missile strike in January, a belief Pakistani intelligence
officials recently revised.
The video follows a second, shorter clip in which the group appears to
claim responsibility for the attempted car bomb, according to the SITE
Intelligence Group, another monitoring organization.
In the 1 minute, 11 second video allegedly released by the Pakistani
Taliban, the militant group says the attack is revenge for the death
of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and the recent slaying of al-Qaida in
Iraq leaders Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who were
killed by U.S. and Iraqi troops last month north of Baghdad.
SITE, a U.S.-based terrorist tracking organization, first uncovered
the video on YouTube. The tape, which later appeared to have been
removed from the website, makes no specific reference to the attack in
New York, nor does it mention that the location or that it was a car
bomb.
New York City's police commissioner said there's no evidence of a
Taliban link to the failed car bomb.
In a copy of the tape provided by SITE, an unidentified voice speaking
in Urdu, the primary language in Pakistan, says the group takes "full
responsibility for the RECENT ATTACK IN THE USA." The speaker says it
comes in response to American "interference and terrorism in Muslim
Countries, especially in Pakistan for (the) Lalmasjid operation," a
reference to the Pakistani army's 2007 storming of the Red Mosque in
Islamabad where militants were holed up inside.
The claim could not be immediately verified. But if it turns out to be
genuine, it would be the first time the Pakistani Taliban has struck
outside of South Asia. It has no known global infrastructure like al-
Qaida. In at least one past instance, the Pakistani Taliban has
claimed responsibility for an attack it played no role in.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the
claim.
"I'm not going to get into assumptions about who might be involved or
what their motives might be," Gibbs said on Air Force One as President
Barack Obama flew to New Orleans.
At the start of the video, a text in gold letters on black background
celebrates the "jaw-breaking blow to Satan's USA." As the speaker
delivers the message, images of the slain militants mentioned flash
across the screen. English subtitles are provided at the bottom.
The speaker says the attack also avenges U.S. drone strikes in
Pakistani tribal areas that target Taliban leaders hiding there and
the "abduction, torture and humiliation" of Aafia Siddiqui.
Siddiqui is a 37-year-old Pakistani scientist who was convicted in a
U.S. court in New York in February of trying to kill American service
personnel after her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008. Her case has
triggered anger among Pakistani extremist groups and in sections of
the media.
As the message concludes, the voice calls on NATO countries — who have
troops stationed in Afghanistan — to oppose "evil U.S. policies" and
"sincerely apologize for the massacres in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and
Pakistani tribal areas."
The Pakistani Taliban is one of Pakistan's largest and deadliest
militant groups. It has strong links to al-Qaida and is based in the
northwest close to the Afghan border. The group has carried out scores
of bloody attacks inside Pakistan in recent years, mostly against
Pakistani targets, but it has made no secret of its hatred toward the
United States.
Last year, its then commander, Baitullah Mehsud, vowed to "amaze
everyone in the world" with an attack on Washington or even the White
House. But Mehsud also reportedly said his men were behind a mass
shooting at the American Civic Association in Binghamton in April
2009. That claim turned out to be false.
The claim comes a day after police in New York found a potentially
powerful car bomb that apparently began to detonate but did not
explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square.
The vehicle contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-
gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical
wire and other components, officials said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36907626/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
http://navanavonmilita.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/terror-war-i-sid-harth/
...and I am Sid Harth
http://navanavonmilita.wordpress.com/terror-war-i-sid-harth/
Holder: Bomb suspect tried to fly to Dubai
U.S. citizen was arrested at New York’s JFK airport, attorney general
says
NYPD via AP
An image taken from a surveillance video released by police on Monday
shows a man, center, carrying a bag and walking away after removing
his shirt in New York City.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36929937#36929937
May 4: Authorities arrest Connecticut man in connection with attempted
bombing in New York City. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
msnbc tv
Slideshow
Car bomb found
Police diffuse a crudely made car bomb found in a dark Nissan SUV
parked in Times Square.
NEW YORK - Authorities arrested a U.S. citizen in connection with the
failed bombing attempt in New York's Times Square as he tried to leave
the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday.
Faisal Shahzad was arrested at 11:45 p.m. Monday night by Customs and
Border Protection agents as he attempted to board an Emirates airlines
flight to Dubai at New York's JFK airport, Holder and other officials
said.
"It is clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill
Americans," Holder said.
Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Pakistan, was
accused of driving a car bomb into Times Square, authorities said. He
will appear in Manhattan Federal Court later on Tuesday.
Holder said the investigation was ongoing, and said that law
enforcement officials had gathered "significant additional evidence."
He urged Americans to remain vigilant.
"The American people should know that we are deploying every resource
available, and we will not rest until we have brought everyone
responsible to justice," Holder said.
Earlier, officials told The Associated Press that the suspect recently
returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife. The
officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the case was at a
sensitive stage.
Shahzad was being held in New York and couldn't be contacted. He has a
Shelton, Conn., address and a phone number listed there wasn't in
service. Investigators were searching his home.
Law enforcement officials said Shahzad bought the SUV that was parked
in Times Square on Saturday from a Connecticut man three weeks ago and
paid cash. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of
the sensitive nature of the case .
NBC's Pete Williams earlier reported the man's name was on an e-mail
that was sent to the seller of the car last month, as well as other
evidence suggesting he had a role in the attempted bombing.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on Monday that an FBI-led
terrorism task force has taken over the investigation of the failed
car bombing in Times Square because of indications it was connected to
international terrorism, a senior law enforcement source said.
The probe had been overseen by the New York Police Department.
Responsibility for it shifted to a Joint Terrorism Task Force as Obama
administration officials said the incident increasingly appears to
have been coordinated by more than one person in a plot with
international links, the Post reported on its Web site.
The White House, according to the Post, intensified its focus on the
failed bombing Saturday in New York City, in which explosives inside a
Nissan Pathfinder were set ablaze but failed to detonate at the busy
corner of Broadway and 45th Street. Emerging from a series of
briefings, several officials told the Post it was too early to rule
out any motive but said the sweeping investigation was turning up new
clues.
Sold for cash
A law enforcement official says the registered owner of the SUV used
in the botched bombing told investigators he sold it for cash three
weeks ago.
The official told The Associated Press that the Connecticut owner
questioned Sunday about what happened to the SUV says he sold the
vehicle to a stranger.
Officials continued to look into the history of the vehicle as one way
to crack the case. The vehicle identification number had been removed
from the Pathfinder's dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine and
axle, and investigators used it to find the owner of record.
Investigators tracked the license plates to a used auto parts shop in
Stratford, Conn., where they discovered the plates were connected to a
different vehicle.
They also spoke to the owner of an auto sales shop in nearby
Bridgeport because a sticker on the Pathfinder indicated the SUV had
been sold by his dealership. Owner Tom Manis said there was no match
between the identification number the officers showed him and any
vehicle he sold.
Hundreds of hours of video
In New York, police and FBI were examining hundreds of hours of video
from around the area and wanted to speak with a man in his 40s who was
videotaped shedding his shirt near the Pathfinder.
The video shows the man slipping down Shubert Alley and taking off his
shirt, revealing another underneath. In the same clip, he looks back
in the direction of the smoking vehicle and puts the first shirt in a
bag.
They traveled to Pennsylvania for video shot by a tourist of a
different person and were evaluating the tape and determining whether
to make it public.
In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said
Saturday's attempted bombing was a terrorist act.
Investigators had not ruled out a range of possible motives, and
federal officials said they hadn't narrowed down whether the bomber
was homegrown or foreign.
One federal law enforcement official, according to the Washington
Post, cautioned that, while investigators are examining unspecified
international communications that may be connected to the attack,
"that doesn't get you to an international plot, a multi-organizational
plot."
"We're just not there," the official told the Post.
Another U.S. official, recounting a conversation with intelligence
officials, was quoted in the Washington Post: "Don't be surprised if
you find a foreign nexus. ... They're looking at some telltale signs,
and they're saying it's pointing in that direction."
Holder: Bomb suspect tried to fly to DubaiU.S. to disclose stockpiles
of nuclear weaponsTimes Square hero: ‘I wondered why nobody
noticed’Bomb’s ordinary ingredients a deadly threatJudge: Militia
members can leave jail until trialJudge delays trial of American
terror suspectsPakistani Taliban chief promises U.S. attacksNewsweek:
Feds feared multicity attacksVideo shows Pakistan Taliban boss
aliveBomb scare alters Pittsburgh Marathon courseSecurity Section
Front
‘Every lead has to be pursued’
Early Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told NBC's
"Today" show that no suspects or theories had been ruled out.
"Right now, every lead has to be pursued," she said.
And investigators had not ruled out a range of possible motives.
Barry Mawn, who led New York's FBI office at the time of the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks and has since retired, said suspects could
range from those sympathetic to the interest of U.S. enemies to a
domestic terrorist to a disgruntled employee who worked in Times
Square.
The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility for the bomb in
three videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups
said. New York officials said police have no evidence to support the
claims.
The SUV was parked near offices of Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy
Central. The network recently aired an episode of the animated show
"South Park" that the group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted
the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume.
The date of the botched bombing — May 1 — was International Workers
Day, a traditional date for political demonstrations, and thousands
had rallied for immigration reform that day in New York.
Security had been also been tight in the city in advance of a visit to
the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a
nuclear weapons conference.
AP
This still photo released by the New York City Police Department on
Sunday shows one of the alarm clocks found in the Nissan Pathfinder
that was used in the attempted attack on Times Square.
Police said the bomb could have produced "a significant fireball" and
sprayed shrapnel with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out
windows. The SUV was parked on a street lined with Broadway theaters
and restaurants and full of people out on a Saturday night.
The SUV was captured on video crossing an intersection at 6:28 p.m.
Saturday. Vendors pointed out the Pathfinder to police about two
minutes later. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening,
was shut down for 10 hours.
The explosive device had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-
ounce can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to
detonate the gas cans and set the propane afire in a chain reaction,
said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
A metal rifle cabinet placed in the cargo area was packed with
fertilizer, but NYPD bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile
enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate fertilizer used in
previous terrorist bombings.
The exact amount of fertilizer was unknown. Police estimated the
cabinet weighed 200 to 250 pounds when they pulled it from the
vehicle.
To experts in explosives, it seemed to be the work of someone who
really didn't know what they were doing.
Chris Falkenberg, president of Insite Security, which works with
Fortune 500 companies, said the device, as described by authorities,
"doesn't differ much at all from 'The Anarchist Cookbook'" — the
underground 1971 manual for homemade explosives.
He said revelations that the fertilizer used could not have exploded
suggested "this is amateur hour. My kids could build a better bomb
than this."
President Barack Obama telephoned handbag vendor Duane Jackson, 58, of
Buchanan, N.Y., on Monday to commend him for alerting authorities to
the smoking SUV. The White House said Obama thanked Jackson for his
vigilance and for acting quickly to prevent serious trouble.
NBC News' Pete Williams, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed
to this report.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36892505/ns/us_news-security/page/2/
Times Square hero breaks silence
Street vendor says he wonders why no one else noticed smoke
Video
Times Square bomb hero speaks
May 3: Lance Orton, a street vendor in New York City, alerted police
to the smoking SUV that turned out to be a failed car bomb. In an
exclusive interview with TODAY, he reveals what made him concerned.
Today show
By Mike Celizic
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 2:12 p.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010
Sometimes, people used to tell Lance Orton not to be such a busybody,
but the Vietnam veteran and Times Square T-shirt salesman can’t help
it. When he sees something wrong, he has to report it.
Nobody’s complaining about Orton now, not after he alerted a mounted
policeman when he noticed smoke coming from a parked SUV in New York
City Saturday evening. Inside the vehicle were the makings of a crude
firebomb — propane tanks, gasoline, fireworks and alarm-clock
detonators. The vendor is being hailed as a hero who may have saved
uncounted lives through his alertness.
“People take it lightly,” Orton told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira and Matt
Lauer on Monday. “I’ve had a few situations where I’ve told people
about things; they say, ‘That’s nothing.’ But you can’t take that
attitude.”
Orton was wounded in Vietnam and gets around with a cane. He said he
was sitting next to his wares when he saw a Nissan Pathfinder parked
with its emergency flashers on and its motor running. A small amount
of smoke was coming out of it.
Video
NYC mayor: ‘Exploring a lot of leads’
May 3: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg discusses with TODAY’s
Matt Lauer video that shows a man switching his shirt around the time
of the Times Square bomb scare.
Today show
The hero vendor said he didn’t see who got out of the vehicle because
of a performance on the other side of the street. “I was distracted by
the crowd,” he said.
Alerting authorities
But then he saw the vehicle. “I wondered why nobody noticed it,” he
said.
One of Orton’s helpers suggested calling 911. Orton said he pointed at
mounted police officer Wayne Rhatigan, who was on duty in Times
Square.
“There’s a patrolman right there on the horse. I asked one of my guys,
‘Go over there and grab that officer,’ ” Orton recalled. “He came over
on horseback. He saw what I did. It was steadily getting worse.”
When popping noises and flashing sparks came from the car, Rhatigan
quickly led police in, moving pedestrians to safety and clearing
traffic so that the fire department and bomb squad could neutralize
the bomb before it exploded.
“Whoever did this luckily did an amateur job,” Orton observed.
Brushing off interviews
Another vendor named Duane Jackson, 58, also noticed the smoking
vehicle and alerted police. Jackson ended up doing numerous interviews
and having dinner with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Officer Rhatigan at
a Times Square restaurant.
President Barack Obama also phoned Jackson to commend him for his
vigilance and for acting quickly.
Video
DHS not ruling out terrorism in bomb scare
May 3: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says it’s
premature to rule out any leads and that officials expect to know more
about the Times Square bomb scare in the coming hours and days.
Today show
Orton brushed off pleas for interviews and passed on dinner with the
mayor. He did agree to talk to TODAY, telling Lauer just before going
on the air, “I could have been here playing a harp this morning.”
Asked later how he felt, he said, “Glad to be here.”
Person of interest
Police have released a surveillance video showing a man who may be in
his mid-40s taking a shirt off a short distance from the SUV, which
was parked at West 45th Street and Broadway. He has a red shirt on
underneath. The man glances in the direction of the SUV and walks off.
Police have named the unidentified man as a person of interest.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, in an earlier
appearance on TODAY, said the man is not an official suspect. Although
New York police have said the bomb was not the work of the Taliban or
other foreign terrorists, Napolitano said nothing has been ruled out.
“Right now, every lead has to be pursued. I would caution against
premature decisions one way or another,” Napolitano said. “The
investigation now needs to take its course.”
“We’ve got to be very careful,” Bloomberg said. “There’s hundreds of
tapes and there’s millions of people who come through Times Square.”
Of the man in the surveillance video, the mayor spoke cautiously.
“Maybe he had something to do with it and maybe not.”
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Bomb’s ordinary ingredients a deadly threat
‘Unsophisticated’ devices, like the one in Times Square, difficult to
detect
Brendan McDermid / Reuters
A NYPD officer in an bomb suit examines a Nissan Pathfinder sport
utility vehicle parked in New York's Times Square on Saturday.
View related photos Video
Video may show NYC bomb scare suspect
May 3: Investigators are eager to find a white man in his 40s seen on
surveillance video.
Today show
Video
DHS not ruling out terrorism in bomb scare
May 3: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says it’s
premature to rule out any leads and that officials expect to know more
about the Times Square bomb scare in the coming hours and days.
Today show
By Joby Warrick and Spencer S. Hsu
updated 8:55 a.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010
The would-be bomber who left his smoldering SUV in the heart of
Midtown Manhattan used the simplest of ingredients: gasoline cans,
propane tanks, the kind of ordinary black powder found in cheap
roadside fireworks.
But it was the simple nature of those components that made the
attempted bombing relatively easy to execute and nearly impossible to
detect, according to U.S. officials and terrorism experts. In that
way, they said, it was similar to a series of other failed terrorist
plots in recent months.
Both the Times Square bombmaker and the man who pleaded guilty in the
plot to bomb the New York subway system last fall used recipes that
required nothing more challenging than Internet research and a trip to
the hardware store or beauty supply shop. While both attempts failed,
the same kinds of simple ingredients have been linked to deadly
attacks in the past, former and current intelligence and law
enforcement officials said.
" 'Unsophisticated' can still cause a lot of pain and misery," said a
U.S. counterterrorism official who agreed to discuss the New York
attempt on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature
of the investigation.
Slipping past security
The official described the latest bungled bombing as a reminder of how
even a crudely constructed attack on an iconic American landmark can
slip past the unprecedented security measures implemented after Sept.
11, 2001.
"These events are so hard to detect in advance," the official said.
"If there were a foolproof way of finding people before they acted,
whether it's the [snipers] in D.C. or someone who puts a bomb in his
car . . . it has to be understood how very difficult this business
is."
For years, homeland security and FBI officials have warned about the
use of propane tanks, gas cylinders or other devices in vehicles. Such
warnings were based largely on intelligence gathered in Iraq, where
insurgents began deploying propane tanks in car bombs widely in 2007,
and on a 39-page al-Qaeda bombmaking memo recovered in 2004 that
advocated the use of materials from hardware stores or pharmacies.
Video
Times Square bomb hero speaks
May 3: Lance Orton, a street vendor in New York City, alerted police
to the smoking SUV that turned out to be a failed car bomb.
Today show
Long before the Iraq war, Timothy J. McVeigh blew up a federal
building in Oklahoma City in 1995 using a truck bomb consisting of
4,000 pounds of fuel oil and fertilizer.
Because bombmaking techniques require some time to master, the
recommended recipes have frequently fizzled, but just as often they
have been adopted by copycats and wannabes.
Two propane-based suitcase bombs were recovered from a failed attack
aboard a German train in 2006 that was attributed to a domestic group.
Three car bombs using propane and gas tanks packed with nails failed
to detonate in back-to-back attacks on London and Glasgow, Scotland,
in June 2007 that were carried out by a British-born Muslim doctor
radicalized over the war in Iraq.
Attacks on the London public transit system in July 2005 relied on
backpack bombs assembled from compounds found in nail-polish remover
and hair bleach. Similar compounds were developed by Najibullah Zazi,
the Denver airport shuttle driver trained by al-Qaeda who recently
pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb New York's subway system last
September.
Zazi received training in bombmaking in Pakistan, and terrorism
experts cautioned against underestimating the capacity of lone-wolf
operators to do significant damage.
"Often officials use the word 'amateurish,' when in fact the attempts
turn out to be more complex than first portrayed," said Bruce Hoffman,
a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University. "Even if the bomb
was amateurish, look at the target. New York has an image of being
tough on terrorists, but that wasn't enough to prevent someone from
putting a car bomb in the city's nerve center on a busy night."
Slideshow
Times Square targeted
Police defused a crudely made car bomb found in a SUV parked in New
York's Times Square.
more photos
It remained unclear late Sunday whether the Times Square bomber had
ties — ideological, practical or otherwise — to al-Qaeda or other
radical Islamic groups. While U.S. officials repeatedly cautioned
against presuming links to Muslim extremists, the failed attack came
against a surge of al-Qaeda-inspired plots on U.S. soil.
"From Fort Hood to the New York subway plot, terror at home
increasingly has a radicalized American face," said Bruce Riedel, a
former top counterterrorism official in the CIA. "We need to avoid a
panic-driven Islamophobic response, but we do need to analyze closely
these cases for insights into the radicalization process."
Frances Fragos Townsend, a top counterterrorism adviser in the George
W. Bush administration, said a successful campaign against al-Qaeda in
Pakistan has degraded the group's capability to launch another 9/11-
style attack, the "spectacular, big attack with multiple, simultaneous
events."
"But what that means is now you worry about the 'underwear bomber,'
and the Zazi case with backpack bombs on subway trains," she said.
Preventing such attacks is a harder challenge, one that requires well-
trained local police officers and a vigilant citizenry, Townsend said.
"Those are the people on the front lines when it comes to the
individual one-off type of attacks," she said.
Staff writer Greg Miller and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed
to this report.
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© 2010 The Washington Post Company
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Pakistani Taliban chief promises U.S. attacks
Video dated early April follows earlier claim for NYC bomb attempt
By NAHAL TOOSI, RYAN LUCAS
Associated Press Writers
updated 12:15 a.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's Taliban chief promised attacks on major U.S.
cities in a video apparently dated early April and released following
the weekend's car bomb attempt in New York City, a monitoring group
said Monday. It followed reports of another video in which the group
apparently tried to take credit for that attempted strike.
U.S. authorities have played down the potential connection between the
Pakistani militant network and the car bomb attempt in New York's
Times Square, saying the group does not have the global infrastructure
to carry out such a strike. However, the Pakistani Taliban are allied
with al-Qaida and other groups, which could expand their reach.
The latest video is about nine minutes long and features Hakimullah
Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban chief, according to IntelCenter, a U.S.-
based group that monitors militant media.
Mehsud does not specifically mention New York, but says he is speaking
on April 4 of this year, and promises that, "God willing, very soon in
some days or a month's time, the Muslim (community) will see the
fruits of most successful attacks of our fedayeen in USA."
"Fedayeen" usually refers to suicide bombers, which the car bomb
attempt in New York did not involve.
Mehsud refutes death
Mehsud also refutes earlier Pakistani and American claims that he died
in a U.S. missile strike in January, a belief Pakistani intelligence
officials recently revised.
The video follows a second, shorter clip in which the group appears to
claim responsibility for the attempted car bomb, according to the SITE
Intelligence Group, another monitoring organization.
In the 1 minute, 11 second video allegedly released by the Pakistani
Taliban, the militant group says the attack is revenge for the death
of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and the recent slaying of al-Qaida in
Iraq leaders Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who were
killed by U.S. and Iraqi troops last month north of Baghdad.
SITE, a U.S.-based terrorist tracking organization, first uncovered
the video on YouTube. The tape, which later appeared to have been
removed from the website, makes no specific reference to the attack in
New York, nor does it mention that the location or that it was a car
bomb.
New York City's police commissioner said there's no evidence of a
Taliban link to the failed car bomb.
In a copy of the tape provided by SITE, an unidentified voice speaking
in Urdu, the primary language in Pakistan, says the group takes "full
responsibility for the RECENT ATTACK IN THE USA." The speaker says it
comes in response to American "interference and terrorism in Muslim
Countries, especially in Pakistan for (the) Lalmasjid operation," a
reference to the Pakistani army's 2007 storming of the Red Mosque in
Islamabad where militants were holed up inside.
The claim could not be immediately verified. But if it turns out to be
genuine, it would be the first time the Pakistani Taliban has struck
outside of South Asia. It has no known global infrastructure like al-
Qaida. In at least one past instance, the Pakistani Taliban has
claimed responsibility for an attack it played no role in.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the
claim.
"I'm not going to get into assumptions about who might be involved or
what their motives might be," Gibbs said on Air Force One as President
Barack Obama flew to New Orleans.
At the start of the video, a text in gold letters on black background
celebrates the "jaw-breaking blow to Satan's USA." As the speaker
delivers the message, images of the slain militants mentioned flash
across the screen. English subtitles are provided at the bottom.
The speaker says the attack also avenges U.S. drone strikes in
Pakistani tribal areas that target Taliban leaders hiding there and
the "abduction, torture and humiliation" of Aafia Siddiqui.
Siddiqui is a 37-year-old Pakistani scientist who was convicted in a
U.S. court in New York in February of trying to kill American service
personnel after her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008. Her case has
triggered anger among Pakistani extremist groups and in sections of
the media.
As the message concludes, the voice calls on NATO countries — who have
troops stationed in Afghanistan — to oppose "evil U.S. policies" and
"sincerely apologize for the massacres in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and
Pakistani tribal areas."
The Pakistani Taliban is one of Pakistan's largest and deadliest
militant groups. It has strong links to al-Qaida and is based in the
northwest close to the Afghan border. The group has carried out scores
of bloody attacks inside Pakistan in recent years, mostly against
Pakistani targets, but it has made no secret of its hatred toward the
United States.
Last year, its then commander, Baitullah Mehsud, vowed to "amaze
everyone in the world" with an attack on Washington or even the White
House. But Mehsud also reportedly said his men were behind a mass
shooting at the American Civic Association in Binghamton in April
2009. That claim turned out to be false.
The claim comes a day after police in New York found a potentially
powerful car bomb that apparently began to detonate but did not
explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square.
The vehicle contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-
gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical
wire and other components, officials said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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...and I am Sid Harth