U.S. officials said Thursday the Pakistani government had arrested a man who claims he acted as an accomplice to the accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, The Washington Post reported.
The suspect has connections to a Pakistani military group.
He has provided an “independent stream” of evidence that the group behind the attack in New York’s tourist mecca was the Pakistani Taliban.
The suspect also said he helped Shahzad travel to tribal areas of Pakistan where he underwent bomb training prior to his return to the U.S.
Earlier Thursday, three Pakistani men were arrested in raids across the northeastern U.S. in connection with the failed bombing attempt earlier this month, Fox News confirmed.
A third man was arrested in Maine following the arrest of two men in the Boston area. All three were arrested on immigration charges.
Sources also told Fox News that the the Boston-area men may have “unwittingly assisted in some capacity” and may have been duped by Pakistani-born Shahzad into providing money.
“These raids are the logical next step in the investigation, after gathering preliminary information to ascertain where money may have come from,” a source told Fox News.
“We’re trying to figure out where (the main suspect) got money from, and these are potential sources of that money.”
Investigators have focused on money couriers as a possible way Shahzad received the cash he used to carry out his plot, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Investigators believe Shahzad may have used a so-called “hawala” system to obtain funds, Fox News reported. According to the Justice Department, “hawala” is a type of informal value transfer system in which money does not physically cross international boundaries through the banking system.
Instead, funds are transferred by customers to a hawala operator, or a “hawaladar,” in one country and corresponding funds are disbursed to recipients in another country by the hawaladar’s associates.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrests a significant step in the investigation into the failed bombing.
“These are people who are connected to Mr Shahzad, and we’re still trying to determine exactly what the nature of that connection was,” Holder said at a press conference in Washington, D.C.