WASHINGTON: An American citizen who is originally from Pakistan has been linked to the car bomb plot in New York’s Times Square, amid increasing concerns that the failed attack was connected to international terrorism.
The man is believed to have bought the car that was left parked in Times Square loaded with explosives on Saturday night, according to U.S officials.
The latest clue to the identity of the would-be bomber comes as officials said the failed attempt on midtown Manhatten appears to have been masterminded by several people with international ties.
White House officials said that fresh clues were pointing in the direction of a “foreign nexus” and used the word ‘terrorism, for the first time in connection with the attack.
“I would say that whoever did that would be categorised as a terrorist,” Robert Gibbs, Obama’s spokesman, said.
Police and FBI agents said that they were looking for a second suspect, a man filmed on a tourist’s video camera running from the car shortly after it was parked in Times Square on Saturday. They also want to identify a white man, aged in his forties, who was videotaped on surveillance cameras removing a shirt and putting it in a backpack.
Police said that they had tracked down the registered owner of the dark, 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that contained the crude home-made bomb but he was not a suspect. He sold his car three weeks ago to a man described as of Hispanic or Middle Eastern appearance, aged about 30. That man is now believed to be of Pakistani origin.
Paul J. Browne of the New York Police Department said that had the bomb gone off there was a “good possibility of people being killed, windows shattered, but not resulting in a building collapse”. Police were also investigating whether there were links between the aborted plot and the botched car bomb attacks at Glasgow airport in 2007. Both involved cars containing propane and petrol that did not explode. The Glasgow attack allegedly had its roots in Iraq.
Another possible motive being explored centres on the cartoon South Park, which outraged many Muslims after a recent episode depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. The Nissan was parked near the headquarters of Viacom, the owner of Comedy Central, which is the channel that airs South Park.
The car, whose number plates had been stolen from a junkyard, entered Times Square at 6.28pm on Saturday. Two minutes after it was parked, with the engine running and its hazard lights flashing, street vendors noticed smoke coming from inside it and alerted police.
The bomb was big but amateurish. Dozens of firecrackers appeared to be intended as a triggering mechanism to light two jugs of petrol, which in turn were meant to cause three tanks of propane, similar to that used in barbecues, to explode. Eight bags of fertiliser had also been placed inside a metal gun locker but the fertiliser was not the right type to cause explosions.
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