Investigation of Times Square Bomb Plot Shifts to Pakistan

Lisa Curtis / May 05, 2010

U.S. officials are reportedly making progress in investigations of the plot to bomb Times Square through questioning of suspected attacker Faisal Shahzad and with help from Pakistani authorities who have rounded up several of Shahzad’s contacts in Pakistan. Despite initially telling U.S. investigators that he acted alone, Shahzad later said he received explosives training at a terrorist camp in the tribal border areas of Pakistan. This information does not fully comport, however, with other reporting that his bomb making skills were amateurish. He apparently made the simple mistake of using the wrong type of fertilizer, which contributed to the ineffectiveness of the explosive device.

Information suggests he may have had contact with Pakistan-based terrorist groups and individuals that have long been under the U.S. intelligence radar. One of Shahzad’s contacts in Pakistan attended a mosque in Karachi with links to Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group involved in the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearle. Another report says Shahzad may have met Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of Harakat-ul-Jihadi-Islami – another group that fought India in Kashmir throughout the 1990s but is increasingly focusing its attacks on the U.S. and other western nations. (more…)