New footage has emerged showing the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad meeting the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Sky News reported Friday.
It shows Shahzad and Hakimullah Mehsud shaking hands and hugging sometime before the failed attack in New York on May 1.
During the video, Shahzad’s voice was also heard.
He said: “Today, along with the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud and under the command of Amir al-Mumineen Mullah Mohammed Omar Mujahid (may Allah protect him), we are planning to wage an attack on your side, inshallah.”
Last month, in a statement read out in a U.S. court, Shahzad admitted receiving training in Pakistan about how to “wage an attack” in America.
The 30-year-old defendant admitted: “How to make a bomb, how to detonate a bomb.
“I asked them (the Taliban) for some cash because I only had — my cash was like $4,500 that I had with me when I was leaving.
“And I asked for some more cash because I had to do the whole operation here.”
Shahzad tried to detonate a car bomb in a Nissan Pathfinder, but the device failed to go off and caused no injuries.
The defendant, who was born and raised in Pakistan before moving to America to study and eventually taking U.S. citizenship, was arrested days after the attempted bombing.
He pleaded guilty in June to carrying out the attack, and admitted to attempting to establish contact with the Taliban while on a 2009 trip to Pakistan.
He also told the New York court that he considered himself “a Muslim soldier.”
Shahzad said he sought and received five days’ training in explosives before returning to the U.S. in February to carry out the bomb plot with funding from the militant group.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 5 and faces life in prison.