Terror roads lead back to Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - The arrest of an American citizen of Pakistani origin in connection
with the failed attempt to explode a car bomb in New York fits a pattern that
international intelligence agencies had specifically pinpointed as an emerging
threat - the involvement of individuals with no established connections with
Islamic or militant groups in terror attacks.
On Tuesday, United States federal prosecutors charged Faisal Shahzad, 30, on
five criminal counts, including committing an act of terrorism and attempted
use of a weapon of mass destruction.
The complaint filed in a Manhattan court said Shahzad had admitted he received
bomb-making training in Waziristan, Pakistan, before attempting on Saturday
night to explode a car packed with explosives in Times Square. The car had cans
of gasoline, propane tanks, fireworks and detonators. Shahzad, who
lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was arrested on Monday night at John F
Kennedy International Airport on a plane about to fly to the United Arab
Emirates.
A senior Pakistani counter-terrorism official told Asia Times Online that the
arrest last September of Najibullah Zazi, a US legal resident of Afghan origin,
for plotting an attack on New York's subway system had put American
investigators on high alert for stand-alone operators.
However, despite many months of working together with specialized Pakistani
security agencies, the Americans have not been able to trace the mechanism
under which militants recruit, train and prepare lone operators for attacks in
the US.
Zazi, 25, pleaded guilty to planning suicide bombings on the New York City
subway system. He admitted that he underwent weapons and explosives training at
an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan in 2008. He is awaiting sentencing. He
said in court that he was willing to sacrifice himself "to bring attention to
what the US military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan".
Al-Qaeda has consistently threatened attacks on the US and security officials
accept that while there is always a danger of an attack of the magnitude of the
September 11, 2001, individuals now pose a significant danger.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban - TTP), claimed responsibility
for the Times Square incident, but unnamed US officials told the Associated
Press there was no evidence to support that claim.
Two videos emerged last weekend showing Hakimullah Mehsud, the TTP leader who
had been reported as killed in a drone attack in January. In the videos, Mehsud
threatens attacks in US cities and says that "good news will be heard within
some days or weeks".
Shahzad's stated links to training in Pakistan will put renewed pressure on
Islamabad to crack down on militants. After operations in other tribal areas,
the military is on the brink of a big offensive in North Waziristan, home of
the biggest Taliban-led group, the Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani network,
as well as a headquarters of al-Qaeda.
Shahzad, who became a US citizen in April 2009, spent five months in Pakistan
before he returned in February, according to reports and law enforcement
officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Shahzad has clearly denied any
links with any militant outfit, saying that he worked alone.
Shahzad was born in June 1979 in the southern port city of Karachi, but his
family hails from Pabi, a town in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province - formerly known
as North-West Frontier Province. His father is a retired air vice-marshal.
Reports in the US media describe Shahzad as giving the impression of a quiet
family man, with a wife and two small children - a girl of about four and a boy
of about one - and telling neighbors he worked on Wall Street.
Pakistani officials are reported to have made at least eight arrests on the
basis of information obtained during Shahzad's interrogation. These include
Mohammad Rehan, taken in Karachi, who is said to have recruited Shahzad and
taken him to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, and then to North
Waziristan, where he was introduced to Qari Hussain Mehsud, the chief of the
TTP's suicide squads and an expert in explosives.
The deputy director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, John Pistole,
was reported in US media as saying that US authorities were working with
law-enforcement and intelligence partners "to uncover all possible ties this
particular individual has or may have had to radical extremism or terrorist
organizations, both at home and overseas, and we are pursuing every lead in
that regard".
Justice officials in the US have at this stage ruled out any connection between
Shahzad and Zazi.
Zazi was an unlikely suspect to have links to militant groups as his family
moved to the US in 1992, before the emergence of the Taliban as a force in
Afghanistan. However, Zazi went to Pakistan and then somehow linked with
al-Qaeda-led militants who took him to North Waziristan for training in
explosives.
The question that will be troubling security officials across the world is how
many more people there are like Zazi and Shahzad, who don't belong to any
established al-Qaeda or militant cell but who are being trained in Pakistan's
tribal areas for acts of terror.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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Zazi, 25, pleaded guilty to planning suicide bombings on the New York City
subway system. He admitted that he underwent weapons and explosives training at
an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan in 2008. He is awaiting sentencing. He
said in court that he was willing to sacrifice himself "to bring attention to
what the US military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan".
