NY Times Square bomb attempt

[ajtr]

Investigators seek money courier in NYC bomb plot​

By TOM HAYS and RASOOL DAWAR (AP) – 4 hours ago
NEW YORK — Investigators of the failed car bombing in Times Square are looking for a money courier they say helped funnel cash from overseas to finance a Pakistani-American's preparations to blow up the crude gasoline-and-propane bomb in the heart of New York, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Investigators have the name of the courier who they believe helped Faisal Shahzad pay for the used SUV and other materials to rig up a car bomb that would have caused a huge fireball in Times Square if it had gone off, the official told the AP. The official didn't know how much money may have changed hands.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
U.S. law enforcement officials traveled to Pakistan — where Shahzad spent five months before returning to the U.S. in February — to question four alleged members of an al-Qaida-linked militant group. Investigators are trying to trace his movements in his homeland and looking into the possible financing of the operation between the Pakistan-born budget analyst and foreign terror groups.
Shahzad, 30, who remains in custody on terrorism and weapons charges, lived alone in a Bridgeport, Conn., and rented an apartment with no apparent job since February. He is seen on videotape buying boxes of fireworks from a Pennsylvania store and authorities say he bought a rifle in Connecticut over the past three months with no apparent source of income.
He paid for the used SUV with 13 $100 bills, authorities say, then tried to blow up the vehicle in Times Square on Saturday. A T-shirt vendor saw smoke coming from the SUV and alerted police.
Officials have been investigating if Shahzad got money from militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, which originally claimed responsibility for the bombing attempt then backed off that claim.
A group spokesman said Thursday the Pakistani Taliban had nothing to do with the attempted bombing, but added: "Such attacks are welcome."
"We have no relation with Faisal. However, he is our Muslim brother," Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told the AP in Pakistan by telephone from an undisclosed location. "We feel proud of Faisal. He did a brave job."
The group has never launched a successful terrorist attack against the United States.
Since his arrest Monday, Shahzad admitted to the failed bombing and has cooperated in the investigation, authorities say. He has not yet appeared in court.
Still, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said investigators want to find out if "what he's saying is in fact the truth."
"We are directly looking at who did he have contact with while in Pakistan, what did he do, who is supporting him and why," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
In Karachi, Pakistan, both U.S. and Pakistani officials questioned four alleged members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, two Pakistani security officials told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The militant group is believed to have been established by Pakistani intelligence agencies, and has been linked to the al-Qaida terror network and the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

- US tones down tirade against Pakistan

 

[DaRk WaVe]

- Unanswered questions

 

[hit&run]

Dependency of USA on Pakistan has halted the backlash for the time being. Also how Pakistan has responded within hrs is testimony to what is at stakes for Pakistan. Any person with half a brain can make such Politico-symbolic statements that the whole country is not terrorist. However after listening to Kasab's villagers comments that they are happy that he has done some thing good by raising war against kaffirs makes me happy to see how Pakistanis will face the prejudice in their master's land USA. Let me see which Pakistani will say the same for USA this time.

 

[ajtr]

Dependency of USA on Pakistan has halted the backlash for the time being. Also how Pakistan has responded within hrs is testimony to what is at stakes for Pakistan. Any person with half a brain can make such Politico-symbolic statements that the whole country is not terrorist. However after listening to Kasab's villagers comments that they are happy that he has done some thing good by raising war against kaffirs makes me happy to see how Pakistanis will face the prejudice in their master's land USA. Let me see which Pakistani will say the same for USA this time.

kasab's villagers' actually did said that to usa to remember for them usa is bigger Satan than hindu india and there were usa citizens among those killed in 26/11.So it was for them the three greatest satan axis of hindu-yehudi-yankee.but the idiots in their lust for kaffir blood killed co-religionists also. they were happy that he gonna free kashmir by waging from india but then till today from last 62 years their illiterate mind couldn't understand that why their jehadi army and jehadis cant able to free kashmir but instead they lost half the country and other half is in constant chaos as of today.secondly they were still unable to understand that they are just cannon fodder for their masters in isi who just send them to perish in india only reason coz their own protector army has lost all its guts to face india directly.so whenever pak army tried to wage war on india it lost and then to save face it show force on its own people in terms of coups.Ask mushy,yahya and Ayub who have done coups or faced coups after losing face on eastern front.

 

[ajtr]

"Pakistan where the Army revels in Jihad by adopting the motto "Iman. Taqwa. Jihad-fi-Sabilillah" or translated "Faith, Piety and Jihad in the path of Allah", it would turn out to become a Mecca for Jihad Tourism."



Shahzad Case Shines Spotlight on Pakistan's Jihad Tourism

The ease with which Times Square bomb-plot accused Faisal Shahzad was allegedly able to undergo bombmaking instruction during a visit to Pakistan has once again highlighted the country's enduring reputation as the destination of choice for jihadist tourism. The claim by Pakistani government sources that Shahzad trained at a camp in North Waziristan will ratchet up pressure on Islamabad to crack down on militant groups that operate in zones of lawlessness on its soil, and to dismantle the infrastructure that continues to attract aspiring terrorists seeking to attack the West.
(See a photo-essay on Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad.)
Although details of Shahzad's ideological journey remain murky, Pakistanis who knew him say Shahzad came from a quietly religious family, and may only have become radicalized recently. "Last time when I met him," retired schoolteacher Nazirullah Khan told Reuters, "he didn't have a beard. I attended his wedding." Shahzad's possible links to Pakistani militant groups are under investigation, but some officials suspect that he may have had ties to Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a banned terror group that began its life as a proxy of Pakistan's intelligence services deployed to fight India in Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai massacre, is also being investigated as a possibility, a senior Pakistani government source told TIME.
If suspicions of such links prove true, Shahzad's case would hardly be the first time a Western walk-in has turned up in the midst of Pakistani jihadist groups. Last October, David Headley, another U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, was arrested and later charged with helping plan the November 2008 Mumbai massacre. According to a plea agreement issued by the Justice Department in March, Headley made contact with al-Qaeda operatives during two trips to North Waziristan — the tribal area under limited central government authority, where Shahzad is also said to have received his training. North Waziristan is the only tribal area untouched thus far by Pakistan's military offensives against its domestic Taliban insurgency, and the region is home to an assortment of jihadist groups that have working relationships with one another (including al-Qaeda). The Pakistani Army has deferred any offensive in the area, claiming limits on its capacity to take on such a mission right now, but the Times Square plot is likely to revive U.S. pressure for an offensive there.
(See pictures of a jihadist's journey.)
Shahzad and similar volunteers who arrive from the West are believed by Pakistani analysts to have begun their radicalization before making contact with local militant groups. "Somehow, in Canada, Britain and the U.S., people get self-radicalized, then they try and get in touch with radical organizations, depending on their background," says Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. "If they are Pakistanis, they come here." And the Internet has proved to be a powerful tool for both radicalization and recruitment. "There's so much available in cyberspace, it would scare you to death," says Ayesha Siddiqa, an independent security analyst in Islamabad.
Any aspiring jihadist arriving in Pakistan is spoiled for choice when it comes to finding a militant group with which to sign up. Banned organizations such as LeT operate openly under different names, and it's not very difficult for the determined volunteer militant to find his way to such groups. "It's like a drug addict arriving in a new town," adds Siddiqa. "They always figure out where to get their fix."
(See pictures of Pakistan beneath the surface.)
Recruits bearing Western citizenship are prized by terror groups, because their passports, education, facility with language and relative comfort with life in Western cities are largely absent among the young, impressionable madrasah students often chosen to carry out vicious bombings in Pakistan, Afghanistan or even India. The potential of these more cosmopolitan recruits to strike in the heart of the West further fuels jihadist fantasies. As Michael Chertoff, the former head of Homeland Security, told MSNBC on Wednesday, "Unfortunately this is the kind of perfect mole for the terrorists. And this is why they're recruiting people who ... have clean records, are American citizens, have lived in America, because they want to take advantage of that cleanliness as a way of evading our defenses."
Britain has had to deal with this problem since the July 2005 bombings of the London commuter system. Given the vast number of Britons of Pakistani origin who move back and forth between the two countries, policing the traffic has severely tested authorities. The U.S. is not immune: Headley was able to move undetected between America, India and Pakistan for nearly seven years. Clearly, a problem also exists with respect to the extent of coordination between Western intelligence agencies and their Pakistani counterparts.
Shahzad, had he been seeking to join up with militants in Pakistan, would have had two distinct advantages over other Western-based volunteers. Having spent the first 18 years of his life in Pakistan, he was at ease in the country. His family's background in the northwest meant that he likely spoke Pashto, a rare asset. And the status of his father, retired senior air-force officer Bahar ul-Haq, is the sort of connection known to avert a suspicious gaze from law-enforcement agencies in Pakistan. Siddiqa goes further: "If you are traveling in Waziristan, and you are stopped, the fact that you are an air-force vice marshal's son can offer you protection," she says.
But whatever training Shahzad may have received in Waziristan must have been mercifully poor, judging by the multiple mistakes in the botched bombing attempt to which U.S. officials say he has confessed. Yet he's unlikely to have been the only Western wannabe to have passed through these camps and then returned to the West to put his militant education to work.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

- Pakistan promises 'complete cooperation' in Times Square case

 

[duhastmish]

- Pakistan promises 'complete cooperation' in Times Square case

Pakistan doesnt really have a choice do they ??????

in case of united states - US dictate the term, all these comment mean nothing at all.

even if there is no involvement of a paksitani in NYC bomb, they will still find some local bloke to hand to united states.

Atleast somebody can get Pakistan talking on their terms. this will also open doors of opportunity for indians ,

 

[nitesh]

these guys have no shame at all any way what else can be expected from them:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64655Y20100507

(Reuters) - Pakistani merchants and job seekers in the United States, still reeling from economic hardship since the September 11 attacks of 2001, are posing as Indians to avoid discrimination in the wake of the Times Square bomb attempt.

Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef are also of Pakistani decent, and anti-American militants fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan take refuge in Pakistan.

and these guys think that no body should retaliate against them you reap what you sow.

 

[ajtr]

these guys have no shame at all any way what else can be expected from them:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64655Y20100507

(Reuters) - Pakistani merchants and job seekers in the United States, still reeling from economic hardship since the September 11 attacks of 2001, are posing as Indians to avoid discrimination in the wake of the Times Square bomb attempt.




and these guys think that no body should retaliate against them you reap what you sow.

Nitesh,
this news item deserves separate thread to analyse the psychology involved and threadbare their cultural identity and ideology which they always claim is not indic but arabic since 1947 onwards.And its not new phenomena its been going on since 9/11.you can see most of the pakistani owned stores/restaurants displaying as indian or identifying themselves as Indian or south-Asian.its the same trend with Pakistanis in UK and all over Europe and Canada.They are gonna spoil the brand India (which expatriate from india have cultivated over time with their hard work) with their terror acts. Indian have to counter this and protect their brand from getting spoiled by terror acts of pakistanis.

 

[ajtr]

Times Sq evacuated over suspect package​

Updated at: 2300 PST, Friday, May 07, 2010 ShareThis story


NEW YORK: New York police evacuated part of Times Square on Friday to investigate a suspicious package a week almost after a car bomb was discovered in the same area.

"We're responding to a suspicious package," a spokesman for the New York Police Department (NYPD) told a foreign news agency. "We will be taking all necessary precautions."

On May 1 police found a large, but malfunctioning car bomb in Times Square, sparking a 53-hour manhunt that ended with the arrest of Pakistani-born US citizen Faisal Shahzad.

A three-block stretch of the sprawling Times Square was cordoned off Friday, and a large number of police cars and officers were responding.

A foreign television reported that the suspicious package was in a drinks cooler near a Marriott hotel. Times Square is one of the most densely packed areas in New York and a major tourist destination.

New York is jittery after last week's bomb scare. However, there have been a number of false alerts reported to the authorities since then.

Meanwhile, interrogators were grilling Shahzad for a fourth day in a bid to resolve the puzzle of whether he has links to Pakistani jihadist groups, as he allegedly claims.

Shahzad, 30, has still not appeared in court or been seen in public since his dramatic arrest late Monday as he attempted to fly from New York to Dubai.

 

[ajtr]

Missing the real McCoy ​

It's so ironic that news of Ajmal Kasab's death sentence for the butchery in Mumbai was crowded off the world's front pages by Faisal Shahzad's damp squibs in a smoking SUV in New York City. The Mumbai attack was planned with military precision and revealed exactly what we are up against. The attempted bombing of Times Square was conceived by an amateur and executed by a hopeless optimist.
Shahzad's bomb, a hodge-podge of gasoline cans, propane tanks, firecrackers, a pressure cooker and alarm clocks, is like a B-grade mad scientist's IED. No, actually, it reminds me of the cartoons of Heath Robinson (1872-1944) in Britain and Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) in the US, who depicted absurdly complicated machines for executing the simplest tasks, such as brushing your teeth or wiping a diner's chin with a napkin. Components of a typical Goldberg machine included levers, pulleys, spoons, pails, cannonballs, see-saws, rockets and lighters to set them off, and birds and birdfeed too. They had a few odds and ends in common with Shahzad's failed bomb.
Robinson and Goldberg's implausible devices made an indelible mark on popular culture. The women who manned the famous Bletchley Park cryptographic operation to break German codes during World War II lovingly named their most complicated-looking device 'Heath Robinson'. The ungainly machine was a direct ancestor of Colossus, the world's first programmable digital computer. And Rube Goldberg's memory lives on through Goldberg Machine contests in the US. The biggest is a national contest hosted by Purdue University. The challenge for 2010 is to build a machine which dispenses precisely the right amount of hand sanitiser into a human hand by using at least 20 absurdly useless processes.
Shahzad would probably have had more fun competing at Purdue than in failing to bomb New Yorkers trying to catch a new show. And I am amazed by Qari Hussain Mehsud, the maximum bomber of the Pakistani Taliban, who has had the temerity to claim responsibility for this fizzle-out. It is like a surgeon audaciously taking responsibility for a botched operation in which he left his stethoscope and car keys inside a patient.
Talking of cars, couldn't someone have told Shahzad how to acquire one for a bombing operation? You don't buy it, and you don't give your phone number and email address to the seller. Even a two-bit thug from Moradabad knows that you have to steal it or rent the services of a car thief. Yes, you have to do things unbecoming of a soldier of the just war and the son of an air vice-marshal. And then you can't just file the vehicle identification number off the dashboard and change the plates. You have to scrape that damned number off every bit of the body, engine and chassis where it may be lurking. Any two-bit mechanic from Aligarh could tell you that.
President Obama is redundantly confident that Americans will not be "cowering in fear" after Shahzad's botched attempt. They have no reason to do so, just as they have no reason to congratulate themselves on arresting Shahzad. He was so inept that he asked the police: what kept you? He is a travesty of the real thing — Ajmal Kasab, whom we have just sent to the gallows.

 

[nitesh]

Nitesh,
this news item deserves separate thread to analyse the psychology involved and threadbare their cultural identity and ideology which they always claim is not indic but arabic since 1947 onwards.And its not new phenomena its been going on since 9/11.you can see most of the pakistani owned stores/restaurants displaying as indian or identifying themselves as Indian or south-Asian.its the same trend with Pakistanis in UK and all over Europe and Canada.They are gonna spoil the brand India (which expatriate from india have cultivated over time with their hard work) with their terror acts. Indian have to counter this and protect their brand from getting spoiled by terror acts of pakistanis.

ajtr request you to continue here: http://www.defenceforum.in/forum/sh...iew/page17&highlight=pakistan+identity+crisis

these guys will claim anything as there own and expect to be treated well

 

[DaRk WaVe]

- Shahzad a 'lone wolf': Petraeus

- An FBI team arrives in Pakistan to probe ties of NY bomber

 

[nitesh]

so LeT links coming forward:

http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/may/07/shahzad-close-friend-of-26-11-mastermind-report.htm

Times Square terror bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad was a childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai [ Images ] massacre, a media report said, as US investigators traced his links to another Pakistani militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Quoting sources, ABC news said Shahzad was a close childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 26/11Mumbai carnage, in which more than 166 people were killed.

 

[nandu]

Times Square probe: Karachi mosque-run by JeM involved

Pakistani intelligence officials are tracing links between Times Square bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad and the banned terror group Jaish-e-Muhammad- led by Maulana Masood Azhar.

This search has led investigators to the sprawling, marble-floored Batha Mosque and a religious school in a crowded neighbourhood of Karachi which was once provincial headquarters of the JeM and which is visited at times by the elusive militant leader, who was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for a hijacked Indian Airlines plane.

The mosque patronised by the JeM is under scrutiny and security and intelligence sources say there is a link being established between Faisal and the people running the mosque.

The sources who declined to be named said the security and intelligence officials had questioned four persons picked up from the mosque for possible links with the Times Square bombing suspect and attempt.

"Possible links have emerged as we try to track down the movements of Faisal when he visited Pakistan in the last few years," one source said.

The source said that US law enforcement officials were also being updated on the ongoing investigations. "There is a link that this mosque was being used to recruit young people by the Jaish-e-Muhammad," one source said.

The mosque located in the north of Karachi in a lower middle class locality has been frequented by the Jaish activists in recent months.

"There are indications that the mosque had links with the banned outfit and they are regular congregations held that are patronised by the banned outfit," one source stated.

The Jaish-e-Muhammad was established in 2000 by Maulana Azhar to train militants to fight against India.

JeM has been blamed for many terrorist attacks on civilian and military targets and has also been accused of killing US journalist Daniel Pearl.

The group has links to Afghanistan dating back to the war against the Soviet occupation.

The security and intelligence sources said that they were investigating possible links between Faisal and the mosque as one of Faisal's friends who was arrested this week was a Jaish member.

The detained Jaish member is said to be Muhammad Rehan who offered prayers regularly at the mosque.

The security and intelligence sources said they were trying to ascertain whether it was possible that Faisal might have been in touch with Al-Qaida and Taliban sympathisers or activists when he last visited Pakistan and stayed in Karachi for three months.

One official said that Rehan was questioned because of his background but nothing clear had emerged as yet.

Another official said the focus on the mosque was there because it had served as the provincial headquarters of the JeM before the outfit was banned in 2002 by the President Musharraf government in its crackdown on militant outfits.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/world/times-square-probe-karachi-mosque-run-by-jem-involved-24050.php

 

[nandu]

The Terrorist Next Door

While it's possible that last weekend's failed car-bomb incident in Times Square was part of a complicated international terrorist plot, the unsophisticated nature of the device has given rise to a much-needed discussion about the threat of "home grown" and "lone wolf" violence in the United States.

The subject leads many to throw up their hands: how, short of creating a police state, can we prevent a lone deranged person from making a crude bomb and parking it somewhere?

The truth, though, is that we are not helpless: standard police vigilance and public alertness can play a role, but the real key to minimizing the damage such people can accomplish is to keep these disaffected individuals from making connections with larger networks.

"Home grown" terrorists are natives or longtime residents who belong to groups that espouse a particular agenda or radical ideology. "Lone wolf" terrorists, on the other hand, usually operate by themselves and are not formally associated with a movement. In either case, they are people who live and move among us every day, secretly working in their basements or garages devising bombs or more dangerous weapons.

Lone wolves can be very hard to find. The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, lived in a shack in the mountains of Montana during the 17 years he sent 16 package bombs that killed three people and wounded 23 others. Eric Rudolph, who set off bombs at the Olympics in Atlanta, a gay bar and several abortion clinics, was a fugitive in the Appalachians for more than five years before his arrest by a North Carolina policeman in 2003. Timothy McVeigh, with a very small cell of two or three people, was able to build the powerful truck bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Fortunately, these men, in terms of determination and ability, were the exceptions. Most lone wolves are as incompetent as they are disturbed, and their attacks, like that on Saturday, tend to fizzle out. Even if a lone wolf terrorist is successful, the attack is a calamity for the victims and their families, but without connection to a larger organization, it will not represent a strategic threat to the United States.

So law enforcement has to focus on preventing sophisticated terrorist organizations from establishing a presence within the United States. The good news is that we know how to do this. The bad news is we aren't doing it enough. No other American city even attempts to do what New York has accomplished. The New York Police Department's intelligence and counterterrorism units, working both with the F.B.I. and independently, manage a network of informant and undercover operatives around the area. It was no accident that last year when a Denver man who was planning to bomb the New York subway system arrived in the city, the F.B.I. was aware of his travels, and a radical cleric he met with was already a police informant.

Of course, other American cities don't have a police force with the manpower and experience of ours, but they can still do more. Small cities can act independently or work with the F.B.I.'s 50 or so joint terrorism task forces to set up investigative teams — just a handful of officers in most cities — to identify violent cells within their jurisdictions. They know how to do it: the techniques and legal authorities to run informants and undercover agents and to install wiretaps on phones and computers are the same as police departments have long used to infiltrate the mob and drug trafficking organizations.

So why have so few cities done what New York has, even on a smaller scale? Two reasons: money and political risk. Despite great gains across the country in recent years, cities are still under pressure to reduce street crime and are thus reluctant to put their best officers on terrorist investigations that may well come to naught. Many think that counterterrorism is the job, and financial responsibility, of the federal government alone.

In addition, some are wary of the political risk involved in running intelligence investigations against citizens and legal residents who may be involved only in legitimate political dissonance — a cherished right of all Americans.

But if we are going to prevent the next domestic terrorist attack, we will need to get beyond these concerns. For society as a whole, paying for a handful of detectives at the local level is far more efficient than spending billions inside the Beltway on bloated bureaucracies and large-scale defensive measures that will most likely have little practical effect. And while issues of civil liberties are important, they can be managed with close legal oversight of terrorism investigations.

As the New York case reminds us, there are people out there with the intent to kill. The job of law enforcement is to catch them before they are successful, and if that is not possible, to prevent them from becoming a real strategic threat rather than a small but deadly menace to our society. While we hope we can find lone wolves before they attack, we also need to reduce the threat they pose by identifying, infiltrating and crushing any terrorist organization before it can mount a sophisticated operation, or before it provides deadly technical support and training to the next Times Square bomber.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/opinion/04sheehan.html?ref=opinion

 

[nandu]

FBI team in Pak to probe Times Square plot

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is in Islamabad to exchange information on the New York Times Square bombing plot, Pakistani officials said on Saturday.

A three-member FBI team arrived in Pakistan's capital on Friday to be briefed by local officials about their probe into possible links between Islamist extremists and Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen from Pakistan charged in the botched bombing.

"The FBI officials are focusing on two things. First, they want to question Faisal Shahzad's father, father-in-law and his friends so they can guess how that man was radicalized and whether he had any links with radicals," said a Pakistani security official.

"Secondly, they want to know if any militant organisation in Pakistan had sent money to Faisal Shahzad to fund the bombing plot," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They want us to find out if any transactions took place through hawala." (Hawala is an informal system of quick money transfer that millions people living abroad use to send remittances to the families back home).

U.S. officials say Shahzad has admitted to the plot and told investigators that he attended militant training camps in Pakistan, but authorities in both countries have not confirmed any conclusive contact between him and a terrorist organisation.

"We have taken into custody a couple of Faisal Shahzad's friends and people who knew them but there has not been any major breakthrough in the investigation so far," the official said.

"We do not know if this person had any direct or indirect links with Taliban, al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group. Other officials have said at least one of Shahzad's friends is believed to have links with Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group with suspected ties with al-Qaeda and accused of some crimes in Pakistan.

Police arrested the person earlier this week in southern port city of Karachi.

Some media reports said authorities had taken Shahzad's father, Baharul Haq, a retired air vice marshal, into "protective custody" but officially it has not been confirmed.

Shahzad was arrested on Monday on a Dubai-bound plane at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, two days after a vendor spotted smoke arising from a vehicle in Times Square. Police defused the crude car bomb consisting of gasoline, propane and powder.

His links to Pakistani terrorists remain unclear but the pressure is building on the country to act decisively to eliminate Taliban safe havens involved in the insurgency in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda terrorist organisation conducting terrorist actions overseas.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Pakistan of "very severe consequences" if a terrorist action on U.S. soil were linked to Pakistan.

"We've made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences," Ms. Clinton told CBS in an interview to be aired on Sunday.

But Ms. Clinton also praised Pakistan's increased cooperation, adding that more was needed from the country.

"We've gotten more cooperation and it's been a real sea change in the commitment we've seen from the Pakistan government. We want more. We expect more," said Ms. Clinton, according to excerpts released by CBS.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article425014.ece

 

[ajtr]

so LeT links coming forward:

http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/may/07/shahzad-close-friend-of-26-11-mastermind-report.htm

Times Square terror bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad was a childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai [ Images ] massacre, a media report said, as US investigators traced his links to another Pakistani militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Quoting sources, ABC news said Shahzad was a close childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 26/11Mumbai carnage, in which more than 166 people were killed.

qouting from BR post..................

One possible reason why TTP / JEM is mentioned, is because LET has to be protected.

There is no love lost between the Pakistani establishment and the TTP / JEM. Both these groups have attacked pakistan and the military establishment.

It is LET on which the Pakistan punjabi army relies on most. The LET is like a brother to the Pak army. Remember what G Parthasarathy had said. In the villages of south punjab one brother joins the army as a soldier, and the other brother joins the LET.

LET is the main operations wing, a-la strategic forces of Pakistan. But this group which is allied to Al-Qaida in that their cadres have a rich history of training together. Some Pan Islamic agenda has rubbed off on the LET from Al qauida and the general islamization trend in Pakistan. The result is that this past decade and a half, the LET has been involved in terrorist acts all the way from Australia, to Indonesia, to Chechnya, to Euirope to the US.

Pakistan desperately wants to preserve the LET for use against India. (Who else will do mumbai 26/11 type terror strikes on India? Who will lob grenades and set off bombs in vegetable markets in J&K or the rest of India, and who will carry that JDAM into India hain ji?).

Pakistan will try its best to make sure that:
1. Any links to LET and therefore to Jihadist Ex or serving military officers is made to disappear.
2. Obfuscate, and try and shift the blame to groups that are aligned against Pakistan - JEM, TTP.
The unusually large group of IB, ISI, MI etc (all going by the colloquial 'Agencies' in Pakistan), brief will be to do exactly this.

Don't forget that its possible this might lead to some military officers in Pakistan.

I think Hillary is hinting at this.

Moreover US congress hearing on LET is just a white wash to assuage india's feelings and calm it down and to show that india that usa is also serious about LET threat .but then its all talks USA's action on ground suggest something totally opposite that they have no problem in pak army protect LET if and only if they dont attack western interests and keep their jihad limited to india.Thats why in recent months after 26/11 we have seen LET leadership shouting from roof-tops that their area of jihad is kashmir only after british foreign secretary david miliband while in delhi in january 2009 shamelessly suggested that 26/11 was the result of kashmir dispute.But at one one point british approve pakistan's non-state actor theory on the other hand miliband says its the dispute of kashmir.if its kashmir then he is directly suggesting that pakistani establishment is involved which indian govt never doubts.Britis after usa too talks in fored tongue thats why you find most of the terrorists leaders getting asylum over their from LTTE to babar khalsa and the islamists.but then for sure british are getting the taste of their own medicine when their own islamists radicals mocks the arrival of dead bodies of their own soldiers killed in iraq and afghanistan or in terms of london tube blasts.

 

[nitesh]

ok guys this person has not lost his job he had quit:

http://www.courant.com/news/connect...bomb-faisal-shahzad-conn-0505,0,4402510.story
Faisal Shahzad 'Blended In' Until He Quit Job, Returned To Pakistan