Times Square Locked down?
 

Anyone have any more details on The Times Square Lockdown today?

Seasoned intelligence and counter-terrorism experts will undoubtedly reveal it was the work of Radical Lutherans, an offshoot of the Hutaree militia :munchin

The Administration came out with this statement: No need to worry we have opened a dialogue with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the rest of the Muslim community, due to their admitted vulnerability we have increased our rules of engagement, requiring definite proof that a shot fired was intentional and was not an AD, but before returning fire, once it is approved by the senate committee on foreign relations, warning shots and 10 minutes of assessment must be given to each situation to make certain we are not undertaking action with frustration and misplaced aggressions.

As to the amateur terrorist truck bomb in the center of Times Square; and we place emphasis on amateur and terrorist, that exactly what it is, no need to worry, we have the boarder situation analyzed and are actively work on a solution that endears us to the 11 million new section 8 and health care recipients / voters. The Times square incident, like all others incidents which have occurred, or will, or might, including such things as the sinking of the South Korean warship, by a North Korean sub, will be down played , or ignored, as we do not want to be perceived as imperialist, reacting to national security issues thousands of miles away from our borders.

In closing the Presidents offers his sincere apology for the closing of shows this evening and once we understand the implication and impact of recent events will announce a press conference in the next couple of months.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...NewsCollection

Bomb Fears Shut Down Times Square

MAY 2, 2010, 12:57 A.M. ET
By R.M. SCHNEIDERMAN, SEAN GARDINER and ELLEN GAMERMAN
A failed car bomb shut down Times Square on Saturday night, causing panic, evacuations and confusion on one of the tourist spot's busiest and most crowded nights.

Police said a Nissan Pathfinder at West 45th Street and Seventh Avenue was loaded with a bomb made of electrical components, three propane gas tanks and two additional gas canisters. They received the call about the suspicious vehicle around 6:30 p.m. and blocked the area from West 43rd to 47th streets along Broadway and Seventh Avenue with metal railings. Parts of 48th Street were also closed.

Mayor MIchael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly were due to hold a news conference at Times Square at about 1 a.m. Sunday.

NYPD closed off streets from pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

Police said their suspicion was aroused because the vehicle's license plates didn't match the make of the car. They dispatched a bomb squad and a robot to check the car. Their attempts to break into the car alarmed some passersby.

Larry Franklin, 56, a street vendor said a friend reported a man to police who put keys in the black SUV and walked away. His friend told him smoke began coming out of the back and police rushed to the scene.

"I looked back and boom," said Matthew Fox, 44, a street vendor. "Everyone started running and women started screaming.""I was 10 blocks away from 9/11 when it happened," Fox said, "and this wasn't anything like that."

"It sounded like a deeper gun shot," said Ivan Morrison, 19, who was in town from Vermont to see "The Addams Family."

....By 11 p.m., a clerk at the Paramount Hotel on 46th between 7th and 8th said guests were not allowed to come in or out.

The clerk added that the Marriot Marquis on 46th and Broadway had been evacuated. Repeated calls to the Marriot weren't answered.

A clerk from the Hilton Times Square Hotel said that at least parts of 42nd Street were closed just before midnight and that guests can only enter or exit on 41st Street.

If we respond with fear, they win. No, it didn't go off but the psyops value is huge. Just as Doolittle's raid in the early days of WW2 did little physical damage, it bolstered and solidified the home front and scared the Japanese.

We need to respond with resolve. But then again, hard telling what BO will do.

Photo caption:

Street vendor Duane Jackson stands at his table a day after an alleged homemade bomb was found in a car directly behind where he is standing in Times Square in New York May 2, 2010. Jackson, who works the corner at 45th Street six days a week, was one of the street vendors who noticed the suspect vehicle. A car bomb defused in New York's Times Square was a potential terrorist attack, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Sunday, but officials held off identifying who may be responsible.

Obviously not another white male veteran Christian gun owner or racist Tea Party member, or it would have been all over the front page already.

Wild shot in the dark, but could it possibly have been one of those pesky, fun-loving Islamic terrorists?

TR

Give them another two hours...

Police and federal agents on Sunday were reviewing surveillance footage that shows a possible suspect in the failed Times Square car bombing, describing him as a white man in his 40s who was walking away from the area where the vehicle was parked, looking furtively over his shoulder and removing a layer of clothing, officials said.

Investigators were examining eight bags of an unknown, granular substance that was packed into a gun locker found in the vehicle, a dark green Nissan Pathfinder. A police bomb squad used an exploding charge to open the 75-pound locker on Sunday afternoon, discovering the substance and a metal pot containing a thicket of wires and M-88 firecrackers.

<snip>

Consumer-grade fireworks, resembling a model known as M-80s, were found taped around the outside of the gasoline cans, according to several people briefed on the contents of the car. Two clocks with batteries, including one that resembled a child’s toy, were connected to the device by small wires.

Investigators believe that the fuses on the firecrackers had been lit, but they did not explode, the people said. The burning fuses apparently ignited a portion of the car’s interior, causing a small fire that filled the inside of the car with smoke, one law enforcement official said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/ny...er=rss&emc=rss

Richard

Heck, it only took two minutes...

FBI forensics lab have more than enough to work with.

Not conclusive but interesting nonetheless, it appears a youtube account claiming responsibility was created the 30th of April?
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...taliban_cl.php

The video?
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/202267.php

Edited to add:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/202263.php

All Flavors of Looney
 

Islamic fundamentalist dirtballs can also be white and/or female, we can't forget that loser from Marin JWL, or that Jihad Jane person. Now that the Pakistani Taliban is claiming responsibility I hope we return the favor.

I hope we do as well...

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...s_pakistan.php

Interesting times we live in.


LINK

New York (CNN) -- A naturalized American citizen from Pakistan arrested overnight in the Times Square bombing investigation will appear Tuesday morning in a Manhattan federal courtroom to face formal charges in the case.

Faisal Shahzad, 30, was on board an Emirates Airlines plane at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when he was taken into custody, law enforcement officials said. A law enforcement official said Shahzad's final destination was Pakistan.

Shahzad was arrested at 11:45 p.m. ET Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder said early Tuesday from Washington.

A federal law enforcement source said Shahzad nearly made it out of the country.

"They just caught him at the last second," according to the source, who said Shahzad was on board the flight to Dubai and the jetway had been pulled back when the plane was called to return to the gate.

Investigators were searching a house in Bridgeport, Connecticut, early Tuesday in connection with the failed bomb attack.


Speaking to reporters, FBI Special Agent in Charge Kim Mertz would not disclose any details of the search.

"Our first mission was to ensure the safety of the public and our law enforcement officials," she said. "That is complete and the public is safe."

Along with several patrol cars, a Connecticut State Police bomb squad truck was called to the two-story building at Sheridan Street and Boston Avenue.

Shahzad is believed to be the person who drove the sport utility vehicle used in the attempted bombing to Times Square, a law enforcement official said.

The Nissan Pathfinder had its vehicle identification number removed from the dashboard. Police climbed under the SUV and retrieved the VIN from the bottom of its engine block. This, said the official, led investigators to the registered owner of the vehicle and then to Shahzad, who had purchased the SUV.

Shahzad claimed to have acted alone in the attempted bombing, said another law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation. The Joint Terrorism Task Force investigating the bombing attempt has said it's considering the possibility that the attempt involved more than just a "lone wolf."

Law enforcement officials had said that Shahzad was the person who bought the Nissan Pathfinder used in the bombing attempt, but had not placed him behind the wheel.

Although officials have not confirmed what flight Shahzad was trying to take, Emirates Air Flight 202 was the only flight scheduled to fly to Dubai last night from Kennedy airport.

A federal law enforcement source said Shahzad has traveled to Dubai before, most recently in June 2009. He returned to the United States in early February.

According to a source familiar with the investigation, investigators believe the plan was an intended terrorist attack to set off explosives in the heart of midtown Manhattan on Saturday night, but the individuals didn't have the expertise to detonate their device.

The Nissan Pathfinder had been sold three weeks ago in a cash deal with no paperwork exchanged, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN earlier Monday. The $1,800 deal was closed at a Connecticut shopping mall, where the buyer handed over the money and drove off, the source said.

A federal law enforcement official said the information gained from the vehicle's sale was the linchpin in the case.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the federal and local law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation, saying their focused and swift efforts led to this arrest after only 48 hours of around-the-clock investigation.

"I hope their impressive work serves as a lesson to anyone who would do us harm," he said.

Shahzad became a U.S. citizen on April 17, 2009, which aided investigators in the case, the federal law enforcement source said. Because of his recent change in status, authorities had his picture and were able to show it to the seller of the vehicle, who identified Shahzad as the purchaser.

A bomb made up of propane tanks, fertilizer and gasoline failed to detonate inside the SUV on Saturday night. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the device could have produced "a significant fireball" in the heart of Midtown Manhattan had it detonated properly.

Earlier, authorities said they were searching for two people they wanted to question in connection with the would-be bombing. A video obtained from a tourist in the area shows a person apparently running north on Broadway, while another video shows a balding man with dark hair removing a shirt and putting it in a bag before walking out of view of the camera, which was inside a restaurant.

"These are not suspects," Kelly said. "These are people we would like to speak to."

The suspect has a Karachi identification card, a document that shows Pakistani residency, and the suspect's family is from northwestern Pakistan, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan notified Malik about Shahzad's arrest on Tuesday morning, and the Pakistani official said his government will work with the U.S. in the investigation.

"We will fully cooperate and help the government of the United States of America to identify and bring this suspect and his associates to justice," Malik said.

"We condemn all forms of terrorism," Farahnaz Ispahani, a government spokesman, said earlier. "If the man arrested is proven to have some involvement in the New York Times Square failed bombing, we are sure that he will get the justice he deserves."

The question of who was behind the failed bomb attempt was the subject of intense scrutiny Monday. Kelly said it was "too early to say" whether the attempt was carried out by a lone wolf, international terrorists, or any other type of network.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud appeared on a video released less than 24 hours after the attempt, claiming Taliban fighters were prepared to inflict "extremely painful blows" in major U.S. cities. But a senior U.S. military official said there was no "credible evidence" at the early stages of the investigation that the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the Times Square bomb incident.

And one counterintelligence official told CNN there was no evidence of any communications among terrorist organizations overseas about the device after Saturday night's attempt.

"People overseas were not giving high fives ... or saying anything about the bomb not working," the official said. "There is no indication that there was that kind of tie."

Another U.S. official with direct awareness of the latest U.S. understanding of the incident said the Pakistani group has never shown "trans-national capabilities" like other groups, such as al Qaeda. But such a possibility is "not something one can rule out at this early stage," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

But Pakistan's Taliban movement has been linked to a 2008 plot to blow up subway stations in the Spanish city of Barcelona, and at least two of the 11 men convicted in the plot came to Barcelona from Pakistan, Spanish prosecutors said.

And Jim Cavanaugh, a former agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the bomber could have been "internationally inspired," but the device showed little sign that a group like al Qaeda was behind it.

"Their bombs would be better funded, better fused, better materials, better knowledge," he said.

The device inside the Pathfinder was made up of propane tanks, gasoline and fertilizer that turned out to be of a non-explosive grade, along with a metal pot containing wiring and firecrackers. More firecrackers were found in a can on the back seat of the vehicle, sandwiched between two full, 5-gallon gasoline cans and connected by wires to clocks.

Cavanaugh called the bomb "a Rube Goldberg contraption" that would have been difficult to set off.

"That does not mean that the bomb's not deadly," he said. Someone close by could be hurt or killed. "But it's not a very reliable working system, a fusing and firing system, at all," he told CNN.

Kevin Barry, a former New York bomb squad member, said the device had "no known signature" -- a style of construction that might link it to known terrorist groups. That suggests it was the work of either an individual or a new organization, said Barry, who is now an adviser to the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators.

Barry said the detonating mechanism lacked the energy needed to properly set off the explosion.

New York police have been examining the device for clues such as fingerprints, hair and fibers since Saturday. The vehicle and bomb components were taken to the FBI's forensic laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, on Monday, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said Monday evening.

"The FBI has released a video showing the detonation of a prototype of the failed car bomb set off in Times Square in May"

"While it is impossible to calculate precisely the impact of Shahzad's bomb had it detonated, the controlled detonation... demonstrated that those effects would be devastating to the surrounding area," the sentencing document said"

"Shahzad left the United States in 2009 for the explicit purpose of learning to build a bomb and attack the US. While there, he made a video which was released by the Taliban in July of this year. On it, Shahzad says, "I have been trying to join my brothers in jihad since 9/11 happened. I am planning to wage an attack inside America."

Video of prototype:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...104018374.html