Last night, the plot thickened in the failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square last Saturday, when federal authorities confirmed what many had been thinking all along — it was a “dry run” for something bigger.
According to one official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation, Faisal Shahzad drove a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder to Times Square from Connecticut on April 28th, apparently to find a good place to park it for later. He then returned on April 30th to drop off a black Isuzu, which was to be used as a getaway car following the bombing. Shahzad went back last Saturday and left the SUV loaded with firecrackers, gasoline and propane, which was powerful enough to create a fireball and likely kill tourists and Broadway theatergoers had it gone off successfully.
Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American from Connecticut, has been cooperating with investigators and admitted to rigging the Pathfinder with a crude bomb based on explosives training he received in Pakistan. “It appears from some of his other activities that March is when he decided to put this plan in motion,” New York police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday following a Senate Homeland Security hearing on Capitol Hill. “He came back from Pakistan Feb. 3, 2010. It may well have been an indicator of putting something catastrophic in motion.”
Shahzad’s scheme was planned to near perfection. That is, until when he was leaving Times Square on Saturday, he discovered he had left behind in the SUV a chain of 20 keys including those to the getaway car AND his home in Connecticut, forcing him to take public transit. Investigators had already started searching for suspects, when Shahzad miraculously returned to the scene on Sunday with a second set of keys to pick up the Isuzu, parked about eight blocks from the car bomb site. That is when authorities knew they had their man and put in the plan to arrest him.
So was this just some lone fool working by himself? Because it sounds like a bumbling iddiot. I laughed out loud when I read he forgot he left 20 keys in the ignition. At least there was no connection to South Park after all so thats good to know.