On May 1, 2010, a terrorist attack was attempted in Times Square in Manhattan, New York, United States. Two street vendors alerted NYPD officers after they spotted smoke coming from a vehicle, and a car bomb was discovered. The bomb had been ignited, but failed to explode, and was disarmed before it caused any casualties. Two days later, federal agents arrested Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistan-born resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who had become a U.S. citizen in April 2009. He was arrested after he had boarded Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He admitted attempting the car bombing and said that he had trained at a Taliban-run terrorist training camp in Pakistan, according to U.S. officials.
United States Attorney General Eric Holder said that Shahzad's intent had been "to kill Americans." Shahzad was charged in federal court in Manhattan on May 4 with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and other federal crimes related to explosives. More than a dozen people were arrested by Pakistani officials in connection with the plot. Holder said the Pakistani Taliban directed the attack and may have financed it. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of "severe consequences" if an attack like this were to be successful and traced back to Pakistan. The Obama administration saw a need for retaliatory options, including a unilateral military strike in Pakistan, if a future successful attack was to be traced to Pakistan-based militants.
On October 5, 2010, Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to a 10-count indictment in June, including charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting an act of terrorism.
Car bombing attempt
Surveillance video shows the bomber's vehicle, a dark blue 1993 Nissan Pathfinder sport utility vehicle with tinted windows, entering Times Square at approximately 6:28 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday evening, May 1, 2010. The vehicle was left, unoccupied, on a tourist-crowded block at the eastern corner of 1 Astor Plaza near the entrance to the Minskoff Theatre which was housing the musical The Lion King. Surveillance video footage shows the driver walking away through an alley shortly after parking the vehicle.
The vehicle's engine was running and its hazard lights were on. Two minutes after the vehicle entered Times Square, several street vendors noticed smoke coming from rear vents of the vehicle and the sound of firecrackers going off inside; the men alerted nearby mounted police. The police officer looked inside and saw smoke and canisters, and smelled gunpowder. He immediately called for backup, a bomb disposal team, and the Fire Department.
The police quickly evacuated and barricaded the area stretching from 43rd Street to 49th Street on Seventh Avenue, and 45th Street from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue, of all vehicle and foot traffic, including Broadway-performance attendees. They also evacuated several buildings near the vehicle, including the New York Marriott Marquis hotel. Although many Broadway shows were delayed, no performances were cancelled.
The vehicle was set ablaze, but did not detonate, apparently due to a malfunction in the ignition source. Upon arrival, the bomb disposal team broke the vehicle's rear window and used a remote-controlled robotic device to search the inside of the vehicle and disassemble it safely.
Initial investigation
Early stages
Shortly after the bomb was discovered, the police looked for a male who was seen on surveillance footage, changing his shirt in Shubert Alley (which runs between 44th and 45th Streets, just west of Broadway). By May 4, however, he was no longer of interest to the police. Investigators also looked for another person captured on video running north on Broadway, away from the area.
In the early stages of the investigation, officials considered several possibilities as to the identity and motive of the perpetrator. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly speculated that the attack could be lone-wolf terrorism, saying: "A terrorist act doesn't necessarily have to be conducted by an organization, an individual can do it on their own." Investigators compared similarities between the Times Square device and the two devices discovered outside a London bar in the al-Qaeda 2007 London car bombs.
The police also investigated whether the bomb was planted in relation to threats posted on the Revolution Muslim website against the creators of the controversial animated sitcom South Park. The episodes "200" and "201", originally aired on April 14 and 21, 2010, had offended some with their irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. Ultimately, it was determined that the bomber had trained for months prior to the first broadcast of "200".
E-ZPass and other camera records at toll plazas were reviewed to identify where the Pathfinder entered Manhattan. Law enforcement officials reviewed hours of security camera footage from at least 82 surveillance cameras in the area to attempt to track the suspect's movements before and after the bomb.
Explosive device
Investigators released details of the explosive device in a press conference on May 4. The bomb components were placed in the rear of the vehicle, as seen in a U.S. Department of Justice diagram of the device. Commissioner Kelly said the bomb components were all "locally available materials," and investigators began attempting to track down where the materials were purchased.
Two travel alarm clocks with batteries functioned as triggering devices. They were connected by electrical wires to containers of explosive and incendiary materials, including two full 5-gallon cans of gasoline, three full 20-gallon propane tanks, and two separate metal containers with M-88 firecrackers inside. Also on the backseat was a 55-inch (140 cm) x 32-inch (810 mm) green metal gun locker that contained a metal pressure cooker, connected to the alarm clocks; over 100 additional MM-88s; and 8 plastic bags containing a total of 250 pounds (110 kg) of urea-based fertilizer. A total of 152 M-88s were located inside the vehicle.
Investigators described the bomb as "amateurish." Several factors may have led to it failing to detonate: the detonator was not properly attached; the gunpowder content of the MM-88s was minimal; and the urea-based fertilizer was not of a type suitable for bomb-making, unlike the ammonium nitrate-based fertilizer which was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. The president of the fireworks company that produced the fireworks later commented "The M88 he used wouldn't damage a watermelon. Thank goodness he used that". Police said that had the device worked as intended, the bomb would have caused a large fireball and sprayed enough shrapnel to wound or kill numerous pedestrians and cause major property damage.
Tracking down the suspect
Investigators examined the Pathfinder at a forensics center in Jamaica, Queens, for fibers, fingerprints, hair, and DNA evidence. The Pathfinder and bomb components were then taken to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for further analysis.
The license plates recovered from the Pathfinder had been stolen by Shahzad from a Ford F-150 pickup truck awaiting repair at a Stratford, Connecticut garage. The registered owner of the plates and truck was not involved in the bombing attempt. The owner of the garage stated that plates had been stolen from vehicles in their parking lot previously.
The vehicle identification number (VIN), a unique serial number used to identify individual motor vehicles, had been removed from the car's dashboard and door, but police were able to retrieve the VIN from the bottom of its engine block. The investigators traced the SUV's last registered owner, a female college student who had sold the suspect the Pathfinder. They collected the buyer's e-mail address from an email he sent to the seller.
They also recovered a phone number for the pre-paid disposable cell phone the suspect had used to arrange the sale, and determined that it had been used for calls to and from a Pakistani telephone number which they knew to be associated with a Pakistani-American citizen, Faisal Shahzad. Shahzad quickly became the investigation's main suspect. A review of Shahzad's phone records showed that he had received a series of calls from Pakistan before and after he purchased the Pathfinder. Investigators also examined international phone records of other possible associates.
Several keys were recovered from the Pathfinder, including a key to Shahzad's house in Connecticut and a key to one of his other cars, a black 1998 Isuzu Rodeo. It was later determined that Shahzad had parked the Rodeo several blocks from the bomb site the day before the attack, planning to use it as a getaway car. On the day of the attack, however, he accidentally left the keys to the Isuzu in the Pathfinder and took the train home instead. He returned for the Isuzu the following day, with a second set of keys.
Perpetrator
Early life, family, work, and naturalization
Faisal Shahzad was born in Pakistan in 1979 to a wealthy, well-educated family. His father, a former Pakistan Air Force Vice Marshal, is deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan. Shahzad attended primary school in Saudi Arabia, and then studied in Pakistan. Arriving in the U.S. in 1999 on an F-1 student visa, he studied at now-defunct Southeastern University. In 1999 the United States Customs Service placed him on its travel lookout list. He transferred in 2000 to the University of Bridgeport, receiving a B.A. in 2002, and an M.B.A. in 2005. In 2004, in an arranged marriage, he married Huma Asif Mian, a Colorado-born U.S. citizen who had just graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
He worked in the accounting department of Elizabeth Arden in Connecticut from 2002 to 2006, leaving for a junior financial analyst job (for an estimated $55–80,000 salary) for Affinion Group in Connecticut until he resigned in June 2009. He had been granted a three-year H1-B skilled worker visa in 2002, a green card in 2006, and became a U.S. citizen in April 2009 by his marriage to his wife. He also had a Karachi identification card, reflecting Pakistani residency.
Shahzad's family lived in a single-family three-bedroom house in Shelton, Connecticut, from approximately 2006 to 2009. The mortgage was approximately $200,000, and he had also taken out a $65,000 home equity loan on the house. He defaulted on both loans in March 2009, and the bank foreclosed on his home and sued him in September 2009. His wife and children returned to Pakistan following this.
West Asian travels
Shahzad regularly travelled to Pakistan, making at least 12 trips to the country since 1999. Between January 1999 and April 2008, Shahzad reportedly brought approximately $82,500 in large increments into the U.S., drawing the attention of the Department of Homeland Security. He had been placed on the Traveler Enforcement Compliance System, a law enforcement database that collected information on travelers suspected of violating federal law.
He told investigators that while in Pakistan, he trained at a terrorist training camp in the mountainous Waziristan region in December 2008 and January 2009; this reportedly included instruction in explosives. Waziristan is located in what was then called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a hotbed of militant activity, and home to a number of terrorist and militant organizations, including al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.
The New York Times reported that sometime in 2009, he had sought his father's permission join the Taliban insurgency against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. His father refused, citing Islamic law that forbids a man from deserting his family. He spent much of 2009 in Pakistan, and visited other Middle Eastern countries in the months leading up to the attack. Shahzad traveled to Dubai on June 2, 2009.
On July 3, 2009, he reportedly traveled to Pakistan and is believed to have visited the city of Peshawar, where jihadist groups are known to recruit foreign fighters to join them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. He stayed there from July 7 to July 22, allegedly seeking training or assistance with his planned attack. In September 2009, Shahzad travelled to Pakistan, where his wife was living; he stayed there until returning to the U.S. in February 2010. During this lengthy stay, U.S. officials believe he may have spent significant time training with members of the Pakistani Taliban. It was during this period that investigators believe he fully committed to the bombing.
Return to the U.S. and planning the attack
After dropping his wife and children off in Saudi Arabia, he returned to the U.S. on February 3, 2010, on an Emirates flight from Dubai. U.S. authorities reportedly identified a money courier who helped funnel cash to Shahzad from abroad to finance the car bombing. There is no record of Shahzad having a legitimate job following his return. Despite this, he was able to pay rent for an $1,150-per-month two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and had ready cash to pay for purchases associated with the attack, leading investigators to believe he was receiving outside funding, likely from the Pakistani Taliban. Shortly before the bombing attempt, Shahzad is known to have met with an unnamed person at a Dunkin' Donuts in Ronkonkoma, New York, who provided him with $4,000 cash.