Faisal Shahzad plot thickens

In a quick reaction to the arrest of Pakistan-born American suspect, Faisal Shahzad (30), Pak security agencies arrested (May 04) three people from Karachi in connection with the failed Times Square bomb plot. They are his friend Tauseef, his father-in-law Iftikhar and JeM activist Muhammad Rehan.

Faisal’s mother was taken into preventive custody

Rehan was picked up from Batkha Masjid in the North Nazimabad, a lower-middle class suburb of Karachi which is known as a Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) hub.

Faisal himself was arrested from JFK Airport when he was about to leave New York for Dubai on May 2.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said that Shahzad had spent five months in Pakistan recently. ‘He admitted to his role in the failed attack. He would face charges of terrorism and possessing weapons of mass destruction’ for trying to blow up the crude gasoline-and-propane bomb amid tourists and theatergoers in the Times Square on Saturday evening.

Intelligence officials in Pakistan say that Rehan had recruited Shehzad, and took him first to Peshawar and then to North Waziristan, where he was introduced to Qari Hussain Mehsud, the chief of the TTP’s suicide squads and an expert in explosives. North Waziristan is home to the Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani network, as well as a headquarters of al-Qaeda.

Shehzad admitted to the US authorities that he had taken bomb training in Waziristan and spent around seven months from July 2009 in Pakistan Jihadi training camps in Pakistan – like the one Faisal says he attended – have taught bomb making and other skills to militants since the 1980s.

He returned to the US in February 2010 with three passports, two from Pakistan and one from the US.

Faisal Shehzad, son of a retired Air Vice Marshal, Baharul Haq, of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), was born in Karachi but his family hails from North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). His father is a retired air vice-marshal; Faisal got American citizenship on April 17, 2009, and worked at Wall Street.

According to court charges filed against him, Faisal, who was arrested as his plane was about to take off from Kennedy Airport shortly before midnight Monday, he received a series of phone calls from Pakistan in the days leading up to the incident.

Five of these calls were received on the same day he bought the Nissan Pathfinder used in the attempted Times Square attack.

Authorities have shed little light on what might have motivated Faisal Shahzad – who comes from a background of privilege and wealth. A real estate broker who worked with Shahzad in 2004 said the bombing suspect had expressed a dislike for former president George W Bush and his policy in Iraq

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the Times Square incident in a one-minute video posted on websites. The video showed Hussain Mehsud, the group’s chief bomb maker, who is also in charge of recruiting suicide bombers. Two more videos were posted subsequently; one of them featured Hakimullah Mehsud and he was seen threatening more attacks against the US and its NATO allies.

Taliban is known for its links with other Islamist groups notably, the al Qaeda, and in conjunction with allies it had staged spectacular strikes outside Pakistan, particularly Afghanistan. It is known to use such attacks primarily to boost the morale of its cadres.

PAK MILITARY REACTION

Pakistan Army spokesman Athar Abbas Wednesday (May 05) warned against saying Faisal Shahzad had taken training in Waziristan until a link is established between the Pakistani-American suspect and main militant stronghold in Waziristan.

‘Until and unless the link is established, it will be premature to say that he had gone there to Waziristan’, the official said even as the Foreign Minister Qureshi and the Interior Minister Rehman Malik have told reporters that Islamabad would fully cooperate with the US investigators.

Waziristan is the base of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has claimed credit for the Times Square bomb attempt.

0 0 votes

Article Rating