Admitted Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad was intent on attacking America even before his evil desire was boosted by the Pakistani Taliban, his alleged co-conspirators have told authorities there.
According to his buddies, “Shahzad was very excited and motivated to inflict a big injury on America even before his training by the Taliban,” a Pakistani intelligence official told The Associated Press.
“After the training, he was very confident.”
Shahzad’s friends Shoaib Mughal and Shahid Hussain allegedly confessed to authorities in Pakistan to traveling with Shahzad to Waziristan, where he received training from the Taliban seven months ago.
Shahzad, 30, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court Monday to 10 felonies, telling a judge that after getting trained in his native Pakistan, and receiving $5,000 from the Pakistani Taliban, he returned to the United States in February to build a car bomb.
The naturalized American citizen left that bomb — a combination of canisters of propane, gasoline and fertilizer — in a Nissan Pathfinder he parked in Times Square in the early evening of May 1. But the fireworks he lit as a fuse failed to ignite the device, which fizzled and smoked.
Shahzad was nabbed two days later aboard a jet about to depart JFK Airport for Dubai.
His wife, Huma Mian, and two children are believed to be hiding in Karachi, Pakistan.
Meanwhile, yesterday, the four senators who represent New York and New Jersey complained that the State Department has failed to add the Pakistani Taliban to the official list of terror groups.
They said they’ll introduce legislation to mandate that designation, which would allow US authorities to seize the group’s assets, bar foreign nationals with ties to the group from entering the country and outlaw providing material assistance to the group.
Additional reporting by Mohsin Abbas in Nowshera, Pakistan