There’s something bothering the admitted Times Square car bomber more than a potential life sentence — he’s dying to know why his makeshift explosive never went off.
Faisal Shahzad, who has spent the last two weeks under guard at a Brooklyn hotel, told his interrogators he was surprised the haphazardly constructed device didn’t detonate — and begged them to explain where he went wrong, a law-enforcement source told The Post.
The source did not say whether he was given the courtesy.
Still, Shahzad — a naturalized citizen who lived in Bridgeport, Conn. — believed it was “God’s will” the device didn’t detonate, WNYW/Channel 5 reported.
Meanwhile, Shahzad now fears for his safety because of all the information he has provided about the people who helped him, The Post’s source said.
Shahzad’s bomb — planted in an SUV in the heart of Times Square on May 1 — fizzled with nothing more than a little smoke.
Experts have pointed to the type of fireworks Shahzad used, saying they were not capable of triggering the chain reaction necessary to ignite the containers of propane, gasoline and fertilizer.
And even if Shahzad had used the right fireworks, the fertilizer was non-explosive.
Shahzad appeared in Manhattan federal court Wednesday for the first time since he was caught at JFK Airport on May 3, trying to flee to Dubai.
The married father of two, who has told investigators he received explosives training from terrorists in Pakistan during an extended trip there last year, is charged with attempted use of weapons of mass destruction and other terror-related crimes that could send him away for life.
As for his family, Shahzad told investigators he was finished with wife, Huma Mian, saying she’d become too modernized, Channel 5 reported.
Shahzad said he scoped out several targets — including Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Plaza and Ground Zero — but determined by watching foot traffic in person and on city-operated public Web cams that he could inflict the most damage in Times Square.
Shahzad was given a court-appointed federal defender as a lawyer after submitting an affidavit saying he has no cash and hasn’t worked since June 2009.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani army officer was arrested in Islamabad because of alleged links to Shahzad, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The officer — identified only as Major Adnan — met Shahzad in Islamabad, and spoke to him on a cellphone, sources told the paper.
Also, the Canadian magazine Maclean’s reported that a senior commander with the outlawed Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taibi is claiming that Shahzad received training from the organization during a three-month stay at one of its camps in mid-2006.