Times Square Car Bomb Attempt May 2010
The Times Square car bomb attempt on May 1, 2010, involved Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen originally from Pakistan, who pleaded guilty to parking a bomb-laden SUV in the bustling heart of New York City's theater district. Shahzad claimed he was motivated by a desire to retaliate against U.S. military actions in Muslim countries, reflecting a broader narrative of resentment among certain groups towards American foreign policy. The incident began when sidewalk vendors noticed smoke and "popping noises" coming from a Nissan Pathfinder and alerted law enforcement. Authorities swiftly evacuated the area and discovered a rudimentary bomb composed of gasoline canisters, propane tanks, and firecrackers, which they successfully defused before it could detonate.
Shahzad was apprehended just two days later while attempting to flee the country, and investigations revealed connections to the Tehrik-i-Taliban, a coalition of Islamist extremist groups. His actions were part of a series of attempted terrorist attacks in New York, reminiscent of the post-9/11 landscape. Shahzad's case raised complex discussions about the intersections of identity, radicalization, and the impacts of U.S. military interventions. The event underscored ongoing security concerns in urban centers and the enduring threat of domestic terrorism.
Times Square Car Bomb Attempt May 2010
Summary: A naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, Faisal Shahzad, pleaded guilty to planting a car bomb in the middle of Times Square on Saturday evening, May 1, 2010. He told a federal court judge that he had received training to make the bomb from Tehrik-i-Taliban, a coalition of Islamist fundamentalist groups generally known as the Pakistan Taliban. Shahzad said he was acting as a "Muslim soldier" who wanted to retaliate for American attacks in Muslim countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Sidewalk vendors in Times Square alerted police to a Nissan Pathfinder SUV filling with smoke while parked in New York's theater district, its engine running. Police defused a device inside the vehicle comprising canisters of gasoline, bags of fertilizer, cans of propane, and firecrackers. Police quickly traced ownership of the Pathfinder to Shahzad and arrested him on a plane already on the tarmac and about to depart for Dubai on May 3, just 53 hours after police were alerted to the incident. The charges to which Shahzad pleaded guilty carry a mandatory life term; formal sentencing was scheduled for October 2010.
Date: May 1, 2010
Place: Times Square, New York City, near corner of Broadway and West 45th St.
Incident: At about 6:30 P.M. on Saturday, May 1, 2010, a pair of sidewalk vendors alerted a mounted patrolman to "popping noises" and smoke filling a dark green Nissan Pathfinder SUV, its engine running, parked on West 45th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan's theater district. Video surveillance cameras showed the vehicle had been parked two minutes earlier. The entire Times Square district is evacuated while the bomb squad defused the device, comprised of two 5-gallon containers of gasoline, three propane tanks (like those used in backyard barbecues), two alarm clocks, M-88 firecrackers, bags of fertilizer, a cooking pot, and a 78-pound metal gun box. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley said the firecrackers were in a 16-ounce can attached to the gasoline containers, which were attached to the propane tanks, evidently designed to set off an incendiary chain reaction. The rifle cabinet was filled with eight plastic bags of fertilizer and more fireworks, possibly meant to generate a secondary explosion. Police said the apparatus was more likely to have caused an "incendiary event" than a major explosion; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the apparatus as "amateurish." Times Square was reopened to pedestrians and vehicles at 7:30 A.M. on Sunday, May 2, about 13 hours after being closed.
Known or presumed perpetrator(s): Shortly before midnight on May 3, 2010, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, Faisal Shahzad was pulled from an Emirates Airlines plane about to depart Kennedy Airport for Dubai and arrested in connection with the incident. He had been traced through the vehicle identification number of the Pathfinder stamped on the engine block, having bought the SUV for cash from a woman in Connecticut a week earlier in a transaction that involved no paperwork. According to most accounts, the FBI had Shahzad under surveillance, but temporarily lost track of him while he drove to Kennedy Airport in New York to board a flight bound for Dubai; he had already taken his seat on the plane when officials came aboard and removed him.
Authorities in Pakistan also arrested two men whom Shahzad was thought to have known in Pakistan: Shahid Hussain, once a fellow student at Bridgeport University in Connecticu, and Muhammad Shouaib Mughal. Both men were accused of having accompanied Shahzad when all three joined the Pakistani Taliban in 2008.
In the following weeks, Shahzad was widely reported to have cooperated with federal authorities investigating the event.
On June 21, 2010, he pleaded guilty in federal court to the 10 charges on which he had been indicted a few days earlier.
In pleading guilty, Shahzad told a federal judge that he had traveled to his native Pakistan in June 2009, just two months after becoming an American citizen, and in December 2009 had gone to Waziristan, in northern Pakistan, to spend 40 days with Tehrik-I-Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban. (Shortly after Shahzad's arrest, Tehrik-I-Taliban issued a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing attempt.) Shahzad said he received training in how to make a bomb in order to act as "a Muslim soldier" in seeking revenge for American attacks on Muslim countries. In response to the judge's question about possibly killing children in Times Square, Shahzad replied: "Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children; they don't see anybody. They kill women, children. They kill everybody. It's a war. And in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims."
Shahzad (b. June 30, 1979), born in Pakistan into a prominent family, had become a naturalized United States citizen in 2009, having previously married an American woman of Pakistani descent and obtained a "green card" authorizing him to work in the United States. He first came to the United States on a student visa in 1999 and received Bachelor's and Master's degrees (in business administration) from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. He later worked for Elizabeth Arden Cosmetics and Affinion, a financial marketing company, both in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Context: The Times Square car bomb represented the latest in a string of plots to attack New York since Al Qaeda hijacked commercial aircraft and destroyed the World Trade Center twin towers in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Incidents included:
- December 2002: An Al Qaeda operative, Iyman Faris, evaluates possibility of destroying the Brooklyn Bridge, but scraps the effort. He was later convicted of conspiracy.
- February 2003: Computer records recovered with the arrest of a man in Saudi Arabia show plans to attack the New York subway system with canisters filled with hydrogen cyanide.
- July 2004: An Al Qaeda operative arrested in London, Dhiren Barot, had carried out surveillance aimed at conducting attacks on the New York Stock Exchange and headquarters of Citigroup a month before the Republican national convention. Barot was jailed in London for conspiracy to destroy targets there.
- August 2004: Two terrorists, Shahawar Matin Siraj, 22, a Pakistani national, and James Elshafay, 19, an American, were convicted of conspiring to plant bombs in the 34th Street subway station in Manhattan just before the Republican national convention.
- November 2005: Uzair Paracha, a native of Pakistan, was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for trying to help an Al Qaeda operative obtain a resident-alien visa. His father, Saifullah Paracha, who operated a garment business in Manhattan, was sent to Guantanamo, accused of plotting to use his business to help bring weapons or explosives into New York.
- April 2006: A Lebanese, Assem Hammoud, was arrested on charges of plotting to explode bombs on a train under the Hudson river with a view towards flooding the financial district. He was later released on $667 bail by a Lebanese court.
- May 2009: Four men, all Muslims and three apparently native Americans, under investigation for a year, were charged with plotting to blow up a synagogue in the Bronx and to shoot down U.S. military planes in upstate New York.
- September 2009: Federal agents arrested Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan native who had moved to New York City as a boy and later worked as an airport shuttle driver in Denver, Colorado, on charges of plotting to make and use a bomb in a terrorist attack, possibly on a mass transit facility in New York, a plot blamed on Al Qaeda. After initially pleading not guilty, in February 2010 Zazi pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country, and providing material support to a terrorist organization (see separate Background Information Summary).