By Spencer S. Hsu Anne E. Kornblut and Jerry Markon
Washington Post
A 30-year-old American immigrant from Pakistan was taken off a plane bound for Dubai late Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport and arrested in connection with a failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced.
Authorities said
Faisal Shahzad of Shelton Conn. had paid cash for a Nissan Pathfinder that was found packed with explosives Saturday night on a tourist-crowded block in Midtown Manhattan. The vehicle was set ablaze but failed to detonate.
Officials located Shahzad after a sweeping two-day investigation that yielded what senior Obama administration officials described as a flood of international and domestic clues suggesting a plot involving more than one person.
A U.S. official said tracing the origin of the Pathfinder was a crucial part of the investigation. Shahzad bought the vehicle through an Internet listing. He gave the seller a fake name but an e-mail from the transaction included a phone number that was from a disposable cellphone. Extrapolating from telephone records authorities found Shahzad and confirmed his identity with the seller the official said.
Shahzad was apprehended aboard Emirates Flight 202. His final destination was Pakistan a U.S. official said. Shahzad been in Pakistan for several months in 2009 returning in February 2010 the official said.
It was clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans Holder said at a rare middle-of-the-night news conference at the Justice Department to announce the arrest nearly three hours after Shahzad was pulled from the plane.
Federal investigators said early Tuesday that they had executed a search warrant on Shahzads home. Television news reports showed agents entering and leaving at least one home in the Bridgeport area.
In Pakistan a news report on an English-language station said Shahzad has family links to the southern port city of Karachi. Shahzad flew to Karachi in July 2009 on Emirates the Dubai-based international airline of the United Arab Emirates and returned to the United States via the same airline Aug. 5 the news report on the Dawn station said citing unnamed sources.
Pakistani officials said U.S. authorities have asked for their help investigating Shahzad and they pledged cooperation.
Administration officials said President Obama had been repeatedly briefed on the incident -- which authorities said could have led to significant casualties if the explosives had detonated properly -- since it began unfolding Saturday night. It bore some resemblance to the attempted bombing of an airliner in Detroit last Christmas with citizen watchdogs earning much of the credit for averting the crisis and the White House scrambling to discover clues about a young male suspect with apparent ties that stretched beyond the United States.
Still within 48 hours agents from Customs and Border Protection arrested Shahzad and took him into custody. It was not immediately clear what the charges were or where he was being held -- or whether other arrests were imminent. The U.S. attorneys office in New York said Shahzad will appear in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to be formally charged.
Authorities became aware of Shahzads identity Monday afternoon and he was arrested about 11:45 p.m. Monday. Shahzads flight to Dubai had left the gate and was headed toward the runway when authorities discovered that he was on board and wanted. He was removed from the plane and taken into custody an official said.
Officials were reluctant to discuss Shahzads potential ties to foreign extremists except to say that they believed he was fleeing the country at the time of his arrest.
The centerpiece of the investigation was evidence gathered about the sale of the car. That was the key factor to our getting the guy so quick a U.S. law enforcement official said. Shahzad allegedly bought the car for $1300 about a week ago responding to an Internet listing the official said.
The cars Vehicle Identification Number had been removed from a dashboard plate and altered. But authorities were able to find the seller by using a decal sticker on the tailgate to trace the car to a Connecticut used car dealer who early Sunday gave them sales records on two cars matching the Pathfinders description. About the same time New York police had rendered the vehicle in Times Square safe and were able to search the engine block and other parts of the vehicle and determine the correct VIN number.
Authorities then found the vehicles registered owner in Connecticut. The owners daughter had just completed an informal sale and had not yet turned in the license plates. But she was able to confirm Shahzads identity through the cellphone and e-mail records authorities had traced.
The cooperation of the family was key one law enforcement official said.
Investigators and agents also were scouring international phone records showing calls between some of the people who might be associated with this and folks overseas according to a U.S. official who has discussed the case with intelligence officers. Investigators uncovered evidence -- a piece of paper fingerprints or possibly both -- that also indicates international ties according to a federal official briefed on the investigation. Before Shahzads arrest the official said the material points to an individual who causes concern to investigators who has overseas connections and they are looking for him.
An overseas angle does not necessarily mean that the incident was planned or financed by al-Qaeda or another organized group investigators said. Think smaller said one senior law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
At this time we believe Shahzad is responsible for assembling the bomb and driving to the site another law enforcement official said while cautioning If we learn later that in Pakistan he has done something in addition I dont know.
On Monday a day of fast-moving developments from Manhattan to Washington Holder said in the morning that it was too early to designate the failed bombing as an attempted terrorist incident. But by afternoon White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was calling it just that.
I would say that was intended to terrorize and I would say that whomever did that would be categorized as a terrorist Gibbs said sharpening the administrations tone. Holders statement early Tuesday called the incident a terrorist act.
Differences also emerged over the significance of a surveillance video that caught a man in his 40s changing his shirt in an alley and looking over his shoulder near where the Pathfinder was parked. New York City police officials had characterized the man as acting suspiciously but multiple federal law enforcement officials said he might not be the focus of the investigation.
It looks like he was just taking off his shirt because he was hot said one law enforcement official. Investigators were seeking to find another person captured on video running north on Broadway away from the area where the smoking sport-utility vehicle caused an evacuation of Times Square on a crowded weekend night.
Police said the bomb would have created a fireball that likely would have killed or wounded many people making it the most serious bombing attempt in the United States since the Christmas Day attack aboard a commercial flight bound for Detroit.
The growing evidence of terrorist connections in the Times Square case prompted the New York-based FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force to take the lead in the investigation which had been overseen by the New York Police Department a senior U.S. law enforcement official said. That indicated that the failed bombing was being investigated as a terrorist incident with international connections the official said.
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko of the New York field office said in a statement Monday night that the FBI JTTF Joint Terrorism Task Force and NYPD are working this case jointly and have been since the beginning. The New York police force known for its expertise in terrorism matters is represented on the task force and will remain heavily involved in the probe officials said.
In the rear of the SUV police found a makeshift bomb made up of three tanks of propane similar to those used in backyard barbecues; two jugs of gasoline; dozens of M-88 firecrackers which are legal for purchase in some states; and a metal gun case holding 100 pounds of fertilizer that police said was incapable of exploding.
Some officials cautioned that the international focus did not mean that other possibilities such as domestic terrorism or an individual acting alone were being ruled out. Neither did it mean they said that international ties automatically constituted a well-formed plot.
One federal law enforcement official for example said international communications dont necessarily get you to an international plot a multi-organizational plot.
Were just not there the official said.
The nature of the possible international connection also remained murky.
The Pakistani Taliban had asserted responsibility for the attempted bombing in a video posted on YouTube but New York police and federal investigators have said no evidence had surfaced linking the group to the bomb.
On Sunday night a second video was posted by apparent representatives of the Taliban showing the groups commander Hakimullah Mehsud promising to launch attacks in the United States.
Mehsud who U.S. and Pakistani authorities initially believed was killed in a January drone strike was recorded saying The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in their major cities . . . in some days or a months time.
The video is marked with the logo of the Pakistani Talibans official media wing Umar Studios and appears to be credible according to Evan F. Kohlmann a terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners.
Staff writers Debbi Wilgoren Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington and correspondent Karin Brulliard in Islamabad contributed to this report.
