Here’s the link to Oui’s diary with the details of the suspect’s arrest at JFK airport. Kudos to Homeland Security’s Joint Terrorist Task Force and local law enforcement for finding this guy before he left the country.
I admit my initial skepticism that it was an attack with foreign connections was incorrect, though it seems clear that the bomber wasn’t particularly well trained in the art of bomb making by the Taliban in Pakistan or by anyone else for that matter.
This does show in my humble opinion, however, that the Obama administration’s policy of increased predator drone attacks against suspected Taliban leaders and jihadists in Pakistan and Afghanistan that often end up killing non-Taliban civilians, including women and children, have consequences. While the numbers of civilians killed is disputed (US sources place the number at 30 killed or less, while others claim over 700 civilian deaths alone last year from drone attacks) there can be no doubt that the US military has become a significant part of Pakistan’s counterinsurgency forces in the Northern tribal areas:
“We’ve become sort of the counterinsurgency air force of Pakistan,” said Micah Zenko, a national security scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations.
To my knowledge this is the first Pakistani American arrested for an attempted terrorist bomb attack on US soil. Major Malik Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood Killer, was of Palestinian descent. Other recent foiled terrorist plots however have had a Pakistani connections.
Agents in Denver arrested Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year old airport shuttle driver, who authorities say appears to be the ringleader of the alleged plot. Also charged with lying to the FBI was Zazi’s father, Mohammed Zazi. […]
Later, Zazi admitted the notes were his and that he attended an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan and received instructions on weapons and explosives.
Law enforcement and intelligence officials say the case began in 2008 when the CIA twice picked up on Zazi’s presence in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, a place often used by al Qaeda to arrange meetings with foreigners.
So far, the only successful attacks or actual attempts against Americans in the US (other than 911) were conducted by individuals, who like the alleged bomber in Times Square seem to be rather inept at bomb making. The real concern seems to be terrorist cells composed of better trained individuals, but those also seem to be easier to discover and infiltrate, as noted by Richard Clarke last night on Countdown (Story #4 on the video feed at the Countdown website for May 3, 2010).
The real question is whether our use of drones based on intelligence from Pakistan’s Military and Security Services is worth the risk of continued attacks, whether by lone wolfs or as part of terrorist cells with connections to the Taliban in Pakistan. The question on how efficacious a policy our drone campaign has been is a matter of dispute, with US intelligence sources claiming great efficacy, while other observers contend that these drone attacks do more harm than good.
I don’t know the answer to that question. What I do know is that there are many easy targets in America for terrorists to attack, whether they be of the foreign or domestic variety. And apparently there are a growing number of highly motivated people willing to carry out such attacks.
ABC News reports that the bomber is a naturalized American citizen. This raises the possibility that we award American citizenship too easily and that American citizenship is regarded as an administrative convenience rather than a true commitment of loyalty. All of the attackers have been Muslims and either naturalized or refugees that are biting the hand of the country that sheltered them. Look for a big backlash on immigration.
Was there ever any doubt? Anyone yelling about “illegals” time and time again proves they know nothing about the immigration process, and usually reveal their racism and xenophobia somewhere down the road. The Majority Leader of Arizona? Follows Neo-Nazis and StormFront on his twitter account.
Anyway, yeah, a backlash on immigration, and a backlash on Pakistani Americans and students. They get a lot of shit as it is.
Reminds me of the Pledge of Allegiance. The reason I always objected to kids reciting the Pledge was that they are too young to consider the importance of what they are seeing. But the, we live in a faithless age anyway, despite (or because of?) the pervasive influence of organized religion. Between Islam and its myriad death dooms and Catholicism and its anti-feminist child molesters, I can’t decide which I hate more. Oh, and before someone feels left out, I’ll add the smug hypocritical Calvinism of Protestantism. I have a friend who is devout Hindu. At least that seems like a harmless fantasy.
“saying” not “seeing” Blame the spell checker.
Here it’s a harmless fantasy. In India and elsewhere they’re bigoted against Muslims and Sikhs. Hindu nationalists are quite the problem. I even see it in some of my Indian friends who aren’t Hindu, too.
The only religion that I can see that doesn’t deserve to be listed is Jainism. I’m sure there’s been documented accounts of Jains being just as harmful, but there’s nothing there that could be twisted and used as a rationale for one to do such things. The religion is based on a non-violence towards all living things.
Of course, Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek.
I forgot about Major Nidal, the homegrown traitor.
That should read ‘So far, the only successful attacks or actual attempts against
Americanscivilians in the US.’Ft. Hood was successful.
I would classify Hasan as a lone wolf more than part of a cell.
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NEW YORK (AP/ABC News) – Shahzad had been under constant watch at his Bridgeport, Conn., home since 3 p.m. Monday and federal authorities had planned to arrest him there that evening.
Shahzad somehow lost the investigators who were trailing him, the two people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.
The FBI and the NYPD declined to comment.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn’t talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off.
≈ Cross-posted from my new diary — Incarceration and Trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in the US ≈
Steven D: the plot thickens, the claim made by (supporters of) Hakimullah Mehsud
and the terror group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) may be correct after all.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Just one year after his naturalization. An unsophisticated Pathfinder bomb plan, a near escape. Can’t help but think that the Pathfinder would have given him his ticket into Taliban training where his sunny fresh face and citizenship would have given access to whatever he wanted to destroy when he returned to America.
Oh look, John McCain has bestowed upon us his infinite wisdom that American citizens should not be read their Miranda rights:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/95837-mccain-serious-mistake-if-car-bombing-suspect
-was-mirandized
.
“The real question is whether our use of drones based on intelligence from Pakistan’s Military and Security Services is worth the risk of continued attacks, whether by lone wolfs or as part of terrorist cells with connections to the Taliban in Pakistan.”
LANGLEY, VA — The plan was a standard one in the CIA’s war against extremists in Pakistan: The agency was using a Predator drone to monitor a residential compound; a Taliban leader was expected to arrive shortly; a CIA missile would kill him. On the morning of Aug. 5, CIA Director Leon Panetta was informed that Baitullah Mehsud was about to reach his father-in-law’s home. Mehsud would be in the open, minimising the risk that civilians would be injured or killed. Panetta authorised the strike, according to a senior intelligence official who described the sequence of events.
● The New Yorker: The Predator War
● Obama Administration’s Use of Drones Responsible for Increase in Civilian Deaths
● Kucinich: US drone attacks in Pakistan could ‘inspire radicalism’
I don’t believe for one minute that drone attacks influence radicalization of Muslims within the US. Look at the recent revenge attacks on the US:
The United Kingdom under Tony Blair was repeatedly confronted with domestic terror groups of Pakistani ancestry. The last major attack was the moment Blair left and Gordon Brown took over as PM. Reason participation Iraq war? Islamic extremists always find a motive to reach for revenge killings: see Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda, Danish cartoons, Dutch filmmaker van Gogh, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kashmir, Mumbai India, Indonesia and Philippines. The terror groups will look for the weak spots and attempt a strike: attack on CIA agents at FOB Chapman on AfPak border. It’s my analysis both Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives are hurting because of the drone attacks. The recent bungled terror plots were well planned, however the people involved were poorly trained and lacked ability to execute. Clearly Pakistan terror leadership sought a quick recipe for revenge.
Terrorist and Extremist Groups of Pakistan
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
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Confirmation of my own analysis …
(NY Post) – US drone attacks have been incredibly successful in the war on terrorists in Pakistan, killing more than 300 people, including several high-ranking Taliban leaders.
The unmanned weapons, launched from secret bases and guided by remote control, strike at their targets with GPS and laser-guided bombs from as high as 2,000 feet.
The killing that most infuriated Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested for attempting to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, was that of Pakistan’s Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud. He was killed in August.
Mehsud, his wife and his wife’s parents were among 12 people blown up by a missile fired by a drone in the lawless South Waziristan region. It took weeks before Mehsud’s body could be recovered and his death confirmed.
IT WAS PAYBACK
The Connecticut man charged yesterday with the botched Times Square car bombing confessed to trying to slaughter innocent people in retaliation for US drone attacks that wiped out the leadership of his beloved Taliban.
Admitted terrorist Faisal Shahzad — who copped to training in explosives in the past year with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the leading extremist Islamic group in his native Pakistan — said he was driven to evil by the slew of deaths among leaders of the terror group, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday.
His training came in a tribal area where American drone aircraft have pummeled members of the Pakistan Taliban and al Qaeda in the past year. Shahzad’s village in KPkhwa shocked.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Qureshi said, “This is a blowback. This is a reaction. This is retaliation. And you could expect that,” according to CBS News.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."