NEW YORK – One year after a militant from Connecticut spread panic by driving a bomb-laden SUV into the heart of Times Square, New Yorkers, tourists and even the street vendor who alerted police to the smoking vehicle still descend on "The Crossroads of the World" as if it never happened.
But behind the scenes, the New York Police Department and other law enforcement agencies still watch for and worry about the next terror plot against the city, something they say is certain to come. Experts say that while al-Qaida remains a threat, the admitted would-be bomber in the Times Square case represented a modern breed of homegrown terrorist — one with perhaps less formal training and fewer resources than the Sept. 11 attackers, but with equal audacity and a willingness to stage smaller strikes that still have the power to paralyze a city.
More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_times_square_car_bomb
Times Square Bomber – Background
By Jim Castagnera
On May 1, 2010 a mounted New York City Police officer was notified of a smoking car, a dark blue Nissan Pathfinder SUV, parked in Times Square. Inside the car were “eight bags of an ‘unknown substance’ and a pressure-cooker-type metal pot containing a ‘bird's nest of wires and M-88 firecrackers’” as well as “three propane tanks weighing between 15 and 17 pounds… [and] two full five-gallon gasoline containers.” The car was determined to contain a bomb that had ignited but failed to explode, and the materials were quickly dismantled without causing any casualties. Tests later found the substance to be “non-explosive grade fertilizer incapable of blowing up,” but the intent was clear. Someone had meant to kill a lot of people.
Two days later, thirty-year-old Faisal Shahzad was arrested as he boarded a flight to Dubai at John F. Kennedy International Airport. A naturalized U.S. citizen since April 2009, Shahzad was born in Pakistan and, after admitting to planning an attack on Times Square, he told investigators that he had trained in Pakistan at a terrorist camp in preparation. In court Shahzad proudly stated, “I want to plead guilty 100 times over.” But why?
Born of a wealthy family in northwestern Pakistan and the son of senior military officer, Shahzad had a privileged childhood, “tended to by chauffeurs, servants, and armed guards,” and while he identified proudly with his Pashtun heritage, he lived in many different places. He attended primary school in Saudi Arabia and several schools in Pakistan. By the time Shahzad entered high school his family had moved to Karachi, a large city in the south of Pakistan:
By then, Pakistan had plunged into chaos. As political instability and sectarian violence roiled the country, many Pakistanis blamed the United States. After propping up the Pakistani military dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, in the 1980s, the American government was now imposing hefty sanctions in retaliation for Pakistan’s nuclear program. The economy stalled as anti-Americanism spread.
Mr. Shahzad came of age during Pakistan’s state-sponsored jihad against India’s military in the breakaway region of Kashmir — a conflict that granted legendary status to Pakistani jihadists. “We used to see the mujahedeen as heroes,” said one graduate of Mr. Shahzad’s high school, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “When I look back, I think, ‘What was I thinking? What were we all doing?’ But in that era, it made sense. We all wanted to do something.”
It is unclear how formative these events were for Mr. Shahzad, who continued to lead a somewhat sheltered existence, living with his family in a neighborhood of stately homes fringed by palm trees and bougainvillea. His school, located on a military base, taught the same rigid curriculum — with an anti-Western slant and a strict form of Islamic studies — imposed nationally by General Zia.
After high school Shahzad attended Greenwich University. He was a mediocre student, but determined to finish his degree in the United States. He transferred to the University of Bridgeport in 2000, where more than a third of the university’s students were foreigners. There, Shahzad had a wide social circle, unlike most Pakistani students who tended to socialize together exclusively, and he showed little interest in Islam. According to a fellow Pakistani student, “Back then, it was all about fast cars and becoming something.”
However, Shahzad’s anger against America was well known to his fellow students. During the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. a classmate recalled Shahzad watching footage of the attacks and saying, “They had it coming,” and, “If these people come to my land, it’s not going to be good.” He seemed to believe that Western countries had conspired to harm Muslims.
In 2002, after he graduated from the University of Bridgeport with a degree in computer applications and information systems, Shahzad once again seemed focused on his future in the U.S. He held down a good job at the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics company in Stamford, Connecticut while attending night classes at Bridgeport and eventually earning a master’s degree. In 2004 he married Huma Asif Mian in an arranged marriage. He seemed settled, though he complained about the fact that his employer never raised his salary above $50,000. Due to his marriage to a naturalized U.S. citizen, he himself was granted American citizenship on April 17, 2009.
Around that time, Shahzad became noticeably more religious. He began praying five times a day, attending mosque, and pressuring his wife to wear a hjiab and to move back to Pakistan with their two children while he looked for a new job in the Middle East. During a visit to Pakistan in July of 2009, Shahzad asked his father for permission to fight in Afghanistan, which his father denied with increasing concern. Shahzad told officials that it was during that same visit that he trained with the Pakistani Taliban in North Wazirstan to learn how to build a bomb that he planned to detonate in the United States.
Legal Proceedings and Trial
“Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. Seemingly pleased and proud to confirm this preliminary assessment, Shahzad admitted to his part in the attempted bombing and was cooperative with the investigation, providing a wealth of useful information. He willingly pled guilty to the ten counts charged against him, all the while smiling and once replying to the judge, “Allahu Akbar” (or “God is great”). He exhibits no remorse for his attempted crimes in a transcript of his court sentencing:
THE COURT: Mr. Shahzad?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: I think you should get up.
Have you read the pre-sentence report?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Have you discussed it with your lawyer?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Is there anything in the pre-sentence report that contains an error that you would like to bring to my attention?
(Defendant conferred with counsel)
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: What is that?
MR. WEINSTEIN: Do you have an objection to it or not?
THE DEFENDANT: No.
THE COURT: Very well. Then I will hear anything you want to tell me and anything your lawyer wants to tell me in connection with sentence.
THE DEFENDANT: OK. My statement should take about five minutes to ten minutes, and I hope that the judge and the Court will listen to me before they sentence me. In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, this is but one life. If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system. We Muslims don't abide by human-made laws, because they are always corrupt. And I had a firsthand experience when on the second day of my arrest I asked for the Miranda. And the FBI denied it to me for two weeks, effecting harm to my kids and family, and I was forced to sign those Mirandas. The sentence by the judge will not mean anything to me, for how can I be judged when the Court does not understand the suffering of my people. They don't understand my side of the story, where the Muslim life of is no value. Therefore, the only true judgment will be on the day of resurrection when Allah will judge between me and you as to who is fighting for the just cause. So decree whatever you desire to decree, for you can only decree regarding the life of this world. The crusading U.S. and NATO forces who have occupied the Muslim lands under the pretext of democracy and freedom for the last nine years and are saying with their mouths that they are fighting terrorism, I say to them, we don't accept your democracy nor your freedom, because we already have Sharia law and freedom. Furthermore, brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me. And only this time it's not imperial Japan or Germany, Vietnam or Russian communism. This time it's the war against people who believe in the book of Allah and follow the commandments, so this is a war against Allah. So let's see how you can defeat your Creator, which you can never do. Therefore, the defeat of U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future, inshallah, which will only give rise to much awaited Muslim caliphate, which is the only true world order. Soon the bailout money which is holding your fragile economy will run out and soon you will not be able to afford the war costs.
THE COURT: Do you want to comment in any way in connection with sentence?
THE DEFENDANT: This is all coming towards the common -- towards the sentence, to how I support myself in the whole, what's my motivation for this whole.
THE COURT: All right. You became a naturalized American citizen some years ago, isn't that right?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Not very long ago.
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: When was that?
THE DEFENDANT: I think it was April last year.
THE COURT: Last year. Didn't you swear allegiance to this country when you became an American citizen?
THE DEFENDANT: I did swear, but I did not mean it.
THE COURT: I see. You took a false oath?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Very well. Is there anything else you want to tell me?
THE DEFENDANT: Sure. I am ashamed that I belong to a slave country like Pakistan, who has accepted the slavery of the West from the day it was born. Bush had made already clear when he started the war on us, on Muslims, he said, You are either with us or against us. And so it's very clear for us Muslims, either we are with the mujahideen or we are with crusading losing Christians. There is no in between. Blessed the immigrants and the leader Sheikh Usama Bin Laden, who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21 century crusade and blessed be those who give him asylum.
THE COURT: How much do know about Saladin as you called him.
THE DEFENDANT: What do I know about him?
THE COURT: Yes.
THE DEFENDANT: He was the one who fought the first crusade from the western European countries.
THE COURT: He didn't want to kill people.
THE DEFENDANT: He wanted to liberate --
THE COURT: He was a very moderate man.
THE DEFENDANT: He liberated Muslim lands from the Jewish crusade, Christian crusade. And that's what we Muslims are trying do, because you're occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, under the pretext of democracy and freedom. We don't want that. We already have Sharia law, law given by Allah. We don't need human-made laws.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. Does your lawyer want to add anything?
THE DEFENDANT: I just want to finish off. I just have like one, two minutes more.
THE COURT: Very well.
THE DEFENDANT: If you don't mind.
THE COURT: I will listen to what you want to tell me in connection with sentence.
THE DEFENDANT: Sure. This is towards the end. So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam. We are only Muslims trying to defend our people, honor, and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace. But if you don't, then I remind you that we have watches and we have time. We will defeat you with time. And before I end my statement, I want to give you the last message, which is the message of truth. So that when you meet Allah on the day of resurrection you will not be able to say nobody gave you the message. The message is there is only one God, the lord of the universe, Mohammed, who is the last messenger and prophet, the Holy Koran is the last revelation to mankind, which obligates by its gospel to embrace Islam and become Muslims and save yourselves from the total pain of the last day.
(Defendant spoke in another language)
THE COURT: Very well.
THE DEFENDANT: Thank you.
THE COURT: Does counsel have anything to add?
MR. WEINSTEIN: Your Honor, I think as I informed the court in the letter about two weeks ago, Mr. Shahzad has asked that I say nothing.
THE COURT: Very well. You may be seated.
THE DEFENDANT: Thank you.
THE COURT: I assume the government has nothing to add?
MR. McGUIRE: We do, your Honor, briefly.
THE COURT: I don't think it is necessary.
MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, if I may just briefly, just as --
THE COURT: A long time ago when I was an assistant United States Attorney, we did not think it was the function of the prosecutor to be heavily involved in sentence.
MR. McGUIRE: Very well, your Honor.
THE COURT: The one thing I would like the government to explain is what the forfeiture provisions mean. I don't understand them.
MR. McGUIRE: The government's not seeking forfeiture in this case, your Honor.
THE COURT: Very well. I'm glad to hear that because I do not understand the language of the forfeiture provision in the indictment. So you are withdrawing that I take it?
MR. McGUIRE: That's correct, Judge.
THE COURT: Very well. I have myself examined the pre-sentence report very carefully, and I do adopt the guideline calculation of the probation officer. But I also examine with care the factors to be considered in imposing a sentence that Congress has enacted in Section 3553 of the Criminal Code in setting sentence. A number of the counts carry mandatory sentences, but nevertheless I have, as the law directs me, considered the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant. The sentence imposed must reflect the seriousness of the offense and the history, and the sentence should promote respect for the law and provide just punishment for the offense. It must also afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct to those who would be inclined to follow the example of this defendant, and, very important, to protect the public from further crimes of this defendant and others who would seek to follow him. The defendant has repeatedly expressed his total lack of remorse and his desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime. So there is really no basis here for me to believe that somebody who falsely swore allegiance to this country, who swore to defend this country, who took oath a year ago to defend this country and to be loyal to it, has now announced and by his conduct has evidenced that his desire is not to defend the United States or Americans, but to kill them. Those are all serious matters that I must take into consideration in setting sentence. There are ten counts in this indictment, and there are three counts of mandatory life in prison.
MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, I'm sorry to interrupt. I believe there's one count of mandatory life in prison, which is Count Six.
THE COURT: Thank you. In any event, Count Six requires life imprisonment. Counts One and Two and Four and Five and Nine and Ten provide for penalties of up to life in prison.
MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, Counts Nine and Ten have a 20-year statutory maximum. Those can be up to 20 years' imprisonment. The other counts your Honor named do have a life maximum sentence.
THE COURT: There are a few counts which have 20 years in prison as maximums. Those are Counts Nine and Ten. Seven and Eight have penalties of up to ten years. At this time I set as your sentence life in prison.
THE DEFENDANT: Allahu akbar.
THE COURT: I am really not inclined, even though the statute so provides, to have sentences following life in prison. It is the height of technicality for me to have sentences consecutive to life in prison. To the extent that it has any meaning, I adopt the requirements of the statutes, but I do not set any period of supervised release because no release is permitted. I want my sentence to be real, not fictitious, not formulaic. What you have done here, although happily the training you sought in making bombs was unsuccessful and you were unsuccessful in your effort to kill many Americans, you have made it plain that all of the factors that I mentioned before require that you be incarcerated for life. Accordingly, that is the sentence of the Court. Is there anything further?
MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, while understanding that it is a technical matter, and I understand your Honor's point with respect to sentence, the government would just request that the sentence per count as it would be reflected in your Honor's judgment be stated for purposes of the record. There is a proposed --
THE COURT: Very well. On Counts One and Two I sentence you to life in prison each, separately.
THE DEFENDANT: Allahu akbar.
THE COURT: I understand that you welcome that. On Counts Three, Four, and Five I also sentence you to life in prison. What I hesitate to say is they shall run consecutively. On Count Six, life in prison is mandatory. On Counts Seven and Eight, the statute requires ten years on each count, or permits ten years on each count, and those will run concurrently with the sentence on Counts One, Two, Nine and Ten. On Counts Nine and Ten I set 20 years on each count to run concurrently with Counts One and Two, but the overriding sentence is life in prison. You are a young man, and you will have a lot of time to reflect on what you have done and what you have said today and in the past.
THE DEFENDANT: My sentence, if you allow me to speak, will be only for the limit that God has given me life in this world. But if you people don't become believers, the life that you would get in the hereafter, which you don't believe in, will be forever. So I'm happy with the deal that God has given me.
THE COURT: Very well. Is there anything further?
MR. McGUIRE: Your Honor, with respect to sentence, stating the special and any mandatory conditions of supervised release.
THE COURT: Thank you, yes. There is a mandatory assessment of $1,000, which you are required to pay. It is not a penalty, but it is collectible as if it were. The conditions of supervised release I will not go through because I consider supervised release here a meaningless technical fiction. You appear to be someone who was capable of education, and I do hope that you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.
THE DEFENDANT: The Koran gives us the right to defend, and that's what all I'm doing.
THE COURT: I see. All right. Is there anything further?
McGUIRE: Your Honor, the defendant should be advised of his right to appeal the sentence.
THE COURT: Thank you. That is correct. You have a right to appeal this sentence. If you wish to do so, you should discuss it with your lawyer. Within ten days he must file a protective notice of appeal for you, so you can then argue to the Court of Appeals, the next level of court, that your sentence is in error. Very well. There is no forfeiture sought, so I will ignore the forfeiture provision of the indictment. It has been withdrawn. You are now excused.
(Adjourned)
Accomplices and Co-Conspirators ?
Initially Shahzad claimed to have acted alone, but ultimately more than a dozen people were arrested in connection to the plot. He later said that he had met members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group responsible for the attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008. He also said that he was “inspired to take up the cause of al Qaeda and radical Islam by the internet messages of Anwar Al-Awlaki.” Attorney General Holder stated, “The Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack. We know that they helped facilitate it. And I suspect that we are going to come up with evidence which shows that they helped to finance it. They were intimately involved in this plot.” President Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, John O. Brennan, also stated, “He was trained by them.” Brennan added, “He received funding from them. He was basically directed here to the United States to carry out this attack.”
Grassroots terrorism has become an increasing worry. In a recent video, alleged Al Qaeda Spokesman Adam Gadahn urged “wannabe terrorists” to create their own attacks against Americans, as this October 2010 FBI report asserts:
(U) Adam Gadahn, Al Qaeda's AmericanMouthpiece, TellsWannabe Terrorists to Go it Alone, Urges Attacks in theWest (The Daily News, 23 OCT 2010; AFP, 23 OCT 2010)
(U) Californian Adam Gadahn, Al Qaeda's American mouthpiece, urged wannabe terrorists in a new video to act alone instead of trying to join cells attempting 9/11-type spectacular strikes. Gadahn, also known as Azzam the American, was born in 1978. He is a native of southern California and has appeared in several videotapes for Al-Qaeda since 2004. Wearing a shaggy beard and with an AK-47 rifle within reach, Gadahn hailed Hasan, Abdulmutallab and Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, who also acted
alone on behalf of the Pakistani Taliban. Gadahn urged individual violent jihad in a 40-minute tape, which endorsed an Al Qaeda ally's call last week for sympathizers to mimic the Ft. Hood killings and attempted bombings over Detroit last Christmas and in Times Square in May. "To my Muslim brothers residing in the states of the Zio-Crusader coalition ... know that Jihad (holy war) is your duty as well," Gadahn said in a the Arabic language video. He addressed Muslims in "emigrant communities like those which live on the margins of society in the miserable suburbs of Paris, London and Detroit, or are from those arriving in America or Europe to study in its universities or seek their daily bread in the streets of its cities …"You have an opportunity to strike the leaders of unbelief and retaliate against them on their own soil, as long as there is no covenant between you and them," he added in the 48 minute, 20 second video, produced by Al-Qaeda media arm As-Sahab.
(U) Gadahn urged Arabs to launch "heroic operations similar to the invasion of the American consulate in Peshawar and the bombing of the Danish embassy in Islamabad," in their cities and capitals. However, "it is obligatory to avoid harming Muslims and destroying their properties" when carrying out such attacks, he said in Arabic, with the video providing English subtitles. Six Pakistanis were killed in an April attack on the US consulate in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. In June 2008, a car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad killing at least eight people, including a Dane, and wounding about 27 others. Gadahn also called on Muslims to attack "American military bases spread across the (Arabian) Peninsula, the Gulf, the Levant countries and elsewhere... like the one carried out by Major Nidal Hasan," the US Army psychiatrist accused of opening fire on colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.
(U) The message is significant because Osama Bin Laden's operational goal has long been to kill hundreds, if not thousands, in simultaneous multiple attacks on US targets with cells of extremists – and Gadahn speaks for Al Qaeda. In October, the Yemeni spin-off of Bin Laden's terror network, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, released a slick 74-page online "magazine" called "Inspire" with essays by Yemeni-American imam Anwar al-Awlaki urging individual jihad. The Gadahn tape and AQAP publication were obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group.
(U) The Gadahn tape may be evidence of Al Qaeda, under massive pressure in Pakistan's tribal areas from a CIA drone blitz, being emasculated if it's giving a stamp of approval to AQAP's call for "lone wolf" attacks, one expert said. Awlaki was in contact with and inspired Army Major Nidal Hasan, accused of murdering a dozen at the Texas base, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber who almost blew up a plane Christmas Day last year. The AQAP how-to manual offered suggestions for individual mass murder, such as gunning down feds atWashington lunchtime eateries and welding blades to the grill of a large truck to "mow down" crowds on a street. "Here you are in the battlefield, just like the heroes before you," said Gadahn, who is under federal indictment for treason.
What we have here is a classic case of Leaderless Resistance ala Tim McVeigh and the ALF/ELF eco-terrorists. Awlaki hides out in Yemen, while disseminating his poisonous message via the Internet. Receptive Muslims, such as Shahzad --- as well as the Fort Dix Six and the Fort Hood shooter--- act either entirely on their own or after reaching out to Al Qaeda operative in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan or elsewhere for training, seed money and other support.
This is global terrorism on the cheap. Also it is a devilishly difficult challenge for law enforcement and national security assets to meet. As I explore more fully in the Conclusion, these two elements of Islamic jihad’s new direction in America posed the grave temptation to use the techniques of entrapment to ferret our and forestall these so called “terrorist wannabe’s.”
Thus far, as I contend in the Conclusion, our courts have acquitted themselves admirably, according due process to defendants who were among the most heinous and unpopular in U.S. history. While severely sentencing those found guilty of terrorist acts, the courts have curbed the worst abuses of the Bush administration.
This record is not without blemishes. If and when a Shahzad should succeed, where he and his ilk have so far failed, will our courts succumb to the temptation of adding more blemishes to the 21st century judicial record?
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