Patterico's Pontifications

5/3/2010

Car Bomb Person of Interest (Updated)

Filed under: Government,Terrorism — DRJ @ 5:47 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

CBS reports the NYPD has a person of interest in yesterday’s car bomb:

“A source told CBS News that investigators are looking at a possible suspect, a Pakistani American, in the botched car bombing incident near Times Square. The source said forensic evidence uncovered in the vehicle led them to a Middle Eastern man’s name that was familiar to counter terrorism investigators.

Sources say the last registered owner of the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder sold the SUV on the Internet site Craigslist in the last month for $1,300 dollars in cash – all in one hundred dollar bills. The seller described the buyer only as a young man who was “Hispanic or Middle Eastern looking.” The owner did not provide a name.

But, investigators, using the communications surrounding the car sale, are now focusing on that buyer. They won’t call him a suspect, but investigators culling through phone records and e-mails have discovered some contacts overseas, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.”

I have several questions if this report is true. Here’s a start:

  • The person of interest is from Pakistan or of Pakistani heritage. Was he born here, is he a naturalized citizen or was he here on a special visa?
  • If counterterrorism officials were already familiar with this person, was he on a government watch list and, if so, what kind and for how long?
  • If his email and/or telephone records reveal overseas contacts, were these records just discovered or were they previously known to officials pursuant to FISA surveillance or another counterterrorism program?
  • What nations are these contacts from?
  • Was this person currently being investigated or under surveillance by any counterterrorism agency, either now or at any prior time?
  • — DRJ

    UPDATE: ABC News and the New York Post have more. H/T elissa.

    51 Responses to “Car Bomb Person of Interest (Updated)”

    1. I have a couple other questions:

      1. Who doesn’t know that if you communicate via a Craigslist posting that you leave behind a wealth of information on Craigslist servers which can be used to find you pretty fast?

      2. Who doesn’t know that simply removing the VIN plate from the dashboard of a vehicle doesn’t solve the problem of having the VIN on both the engine block and axel?

      Not very bright terrorists.

      shipwreckedcrew (227d8b)

    2. No one said they were bright… but they are fairly determined.

      GeneralMalaise (53ce9e)

    3. So much for wheeler’s cat’s and Intelliology’s attempts to deflect attention.

      SPQR (26be8b)

    4. He was radicalized by the abuse of Palestinians
      /sarc

      Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641)

    5. Bloomberg’s NYPD gave a permit to the Viacom threatening Revolutionislam.com nutjob, at Times Square, at the same time this bomb was deployed near the Viacom building. Even if these events are unrelated, how did the police fail to scrutinize the area and make sure no one did anything crazy to near the Viacom building… that revolutionislam.com was videotaping while shouting into a bullhorn?

      The NYPD should have paid attention to this obvious threat, after so many attack attempts like this. Only because of sheer luck did the bomb not kill hundreds, and now Bloomberg is saying he’d bet this was someone upset about Obamacare. They have limited antiterror resources, so they can’t keep scrutinizing Tea Party granny and Us Veterans when RevolutionIslam is publicizing activity in a sensitive area. At least, they need to prioritize the latter instead of tilting at windmills.

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    6. I still think it was Frank Rich longing to get back to his drama haunts.

      And, our fly-by-night trolls really distinguished themselves on this one.
      Perhaps PP can put them on Double Secret Probation?

      AD - RtR/OS! (ad3aba)

    7. I have read a ton of stuff about the bombing this afternoon on several news sites. In one of those articles (I don’t recall which, it was stated that he is a naturalized American citizen. I also read that he had just returned from several months in Pakistan.

      elissa (cf7128)

    8. Yeah, just your average Right-Wing, TEA Party, wacko//sarc.

      AD - RtR/OS! (ad3aba)

    9. Have nishi the genocidal eugenecist and idiotology dropped in to admit how wrong wrong wrong they were, when they tried to smear the tea partiers?

      JD (150c8d)

    10. “The seller described the buyer only as a young man who was “Hispanic or Middle Eastern looking”

      Those damn Illegal Jihadist Muslim Mexicans!

      JHE (9284aa)

    11. Are you beginning to get the feeling that a whole lot of info on this is being covered up and will stay that way while the masses are moved back to ‘Health care for all!’ and ‘Hope and change!’ and ‘TEA Partiers are bad!’?

      Metallica (bb58d8)

    12. shipwreckedcrew,

      Your points suggest it’s even more likely this was organized Islamic terrorism instead of a domestic a lone wolf. Islamic terrorists want to make it difficult to track them down, but not impossible because they want us to know who attacked America. Frankly, I wonder if this wasn’t supposed to be a suicide attack but he left when he couldn’t get the bomb to ignite.

      DRJ (d43dcd)

    13. the source said forensic evidence uncovered in the vehicle led them to a Middle Eastern man’s name that was familiar to counter terrorism investigators.

      Okay…are we supposed to guess the name of the guy?

      jcurtis (138cbe)

    14. just sayin’
      if the perp was some high powered terrorist operative with foreign connections, how become his handlers didn’t tell him what kind of fertilizer to buy and to open the valves on the propane tanks?
      if there is one thing the terror organizatons know how to do is build a carbomb.
      i still think its a one-off, and an amateur.

      wheeler's cat (fe6068)

    15. The question remains, nishi, why are you so invested in it being anyone but an islamic extremist?

      SPQR (26be8b)

    16. BTW, the fact that the attack failed does not itself discount connections with “international” terrorism. Reid’s attempt was amateur but he had such connections. Likewise, the underwear bomber last year.

      SPQR (26be8b)

    17. –Those damn Illegal Jihadist Muslim Mexicans–

      That is funny JHE. But at the same time, the Pathfinder seller’s innocent description of the buyer as being “Hispanic or middle eastern looking” shows how dangerously problematic that uncontrolled border area down in AZ really can be.

      elissa (cf7128)

    18. “if the perp was some high powered terrorist operative with foreign connections, how become his handlers didn’t tell him what kind of fertilizer to buy and to open the valves on the propane tanks?”

      nishi – Ask somebody. You’re the one with the muslim connections.

      daleyrocks (1d0d98)

    19. I see that nishi now thinks it knows better than those in the government who have access to superior knowledge than it does. SHOCKA

      JD (150c8d)

    20. WEll you laugh, but there has been a pronounced Islamist influence in places like Chiapas, and
      even Sufis aren’t as mellow as they seem, ask the Nasquabandi about that. Or Shamil, the original Chechen warrior

      ian cormac (ec5ca6)

    21. JD – It’s almost like the incident is proved to be linked to international terrorism, nishi will be sad that it didn’t succeed due to their amateurism.

      She REALLY, REALLY loves America.

      daleyrocks (1d0d98)

    22. She is off her damn rocker, daley. She is in full-on manic krazy mode recently.

      JD (150c8d)

    23. “just sayin’
      if the perp was some high powered terrorist operative”

      You mean you’re just spreading propaganda. Terrorists are generally terrible fighters, and Al Qaida tends to test terror methods in the real world. They don’t perfect their bombs in some camp and then employ the perfected bomb.

      The idea that this isn’t a terrorist because it’s not some James Bond polished villain is just insane. This is right along the lines of the Al Qaida that originally planned to suicide crash into the Eiffel Tower without providing their own pilots (demanding pilots commit suicide or … be killed).

      They figured out their screw up then, too. I don’t know that this wasn’t a domestic terrorist, but Al Qaida is just a network… it’s not some super professional organization with some high consistent quality. All the evidence we know points in a certain direction, and you can ‘just sayin’ up all kinds of hogwash to try to avoid what really happened. That kind of game is why we’re having attacks again.

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    24. Frankly, I wonder if this wasn’t supposed to be a suicide attack but he left when he couldn’t get the bomb to ignite.

      I guess this guy never owned a gas grill. It’s not enough to open the valve on a modern propane tank. You also need the special connector on the gas regulator to push the butterfly open.

      nk (db4a41)

    25. “You also need the special connector on the gas regulator”

      And I scoffed when they refused to exchange my ‘non safety feature’ tanks. Little did I know they were thwarting jihad (or some domestic nut).

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    26. Have nishi the genocidal eugenecist and idiotology dropped in to admit how wrong wrong wrong they were, when they tried to smear the tea partiers?

      They might at least have had some ground to stand on when it came to suspicions about the guy who crashed a plane into an IRS office in Austin, Texas. But somehow fitting that that person, as things turned out, apparently had a sympathy for communism instead of capitalism. IOW, he was closer to the leftwing than the rightwing.

      Merely a continuation of ironic circumstances going back decades. Notably, the assasination of 2 heroes of the Democrat Party/liberals, referring to JFK and his brother Robert.

      Murderer Lee Harvey Oswald was an ultra-liberal (ie, a Communist), and Sirhan Sirhan had quirky ties — symbolic or otherwise (eg, poor, pitiful, sad Palestinians) — with the left.

      Then to illustrate just how truly screwed up and unreliable are the perceptions and judgment of so many folks on the left, when another killer of an icon of Democrats/liberals in particular, namely Martin Luther King, Jr, was gunned down by a racist, bigoted ultra-conservative — James Earl Ray — members of the King family gave him the benefit of the doubt and even believed him to be somehow innocent of the crime.

      Lesson in all this: Whenever a liberal makes a claim, assume the polar opposite of that will be where truth and reality can be found.

      Mark (411533)

    27. Iowahawk made a joke that the only sure way to get a suicide bomber to do his job was to implant the detonator switch in his nose. It’s likely true. In another life, these guys would be shovelling came manure and competing for the job of village idiot. (The one who forgets to show up for the interview wins.)

      nk (db4a41)

    28. “She is off her damn rocker, daley. She is in full-on manic krazy mode recently.”

      JD – I don’t think it’s just recently.

      daleyrocks (1d0d98)

    29. Not to mention that Obama’s mentor Bill Ayers dedicated his book “Prairie Fire” to among others,
      Sirhan Sirhan, and we could go back farther to Cgolz
      the anarchist murderer of McKinley, the Fourierism
      one of Garfield (name escapes) You probably have to go back to Booth to see a real reactionary at the big times. Yes, before you answer, Beckwith, Stoner
      I had no problem with them finding the noose

      ian cormac (ec5ca6)

    30. Now, here is a great example of cognitive dissonance. Nishi the Nutty Troll writes, regarding competency:

      “…if there is one thing the terror organizatons know how to do is build a carbomb…”

      Sort of like spelling.

      But more seriously, there have been lots and lots of terrorists who have messed up their bombs. Here is a place to start:

      http://www.slate.com/id/2170520

      Of course, like the old IRA joke: the antiterrorists have to be successful every time. The terrorists only have to be successful once.

      As we can see, nishi doesn’t need to go look anything up. She knows things.

      I still want to see her tell an imam what Muslims can and can’t do. It would be delicious.

      But I am growing more and more certain that nishi has some kind of substance abuse problem. I could be wrong, of course.

      Eric Blair (c8876d)

    31. Maybe the Pakistani guy just lost something in translation on the fertilizer and wound up with miracle gro instead of urea. Doesn’t mean he was inept or didn’t try… just that he didn’t get what he needed

      SteveG (6fa662)

    32. Good point, SteveG. Unless you’re buying charcoal for the grill, it would raise suspicion to go into the store and ask for the exploding or incendiary version of a product.

      DRJ (d43dcd)

    33. There was a law passed after the Oklahoma City bombing, and a lawsuit brought by Johnnie Cochran, that restricted the sale of explosives grade fertilizer.

      nk (db4a41)

    34. wheeler’s cat said:

      just sayin’
      if the perp was some high powered terrorist operative with foreign connections, how become his handlers didn’t tell him what kind of fertilizer to buy and to open the valves on the propane tanks?
      if there is one thing the terror organizatons know how to do is build a carbomb.
      i still think its a one-off, and an amateur.

      You could be right. Probably an amateur.

      But there’s the problem with your posit. It might be something you are unfamiliar with: It’s called culture.

      I know you want the perp to be a misguided white guy to fit your meme. If that makes you sleep well at night, good for you.

      But, something happened in 1995.

      It killed a lot of innocent people including kids. It was perpetrated by a sick, twisted white guy.

      And a whole lot of people said we can’t let this happen again.

      Some of those people sell the fertilizer and fuel that allowed the OKC tragedy to happen. And maybe, just maybe, they are smart enough now, with the help of laws and regulations, to prevent another tragedy.

      You seem to want the killing of innocents to prove your view that the people you disagree with are capable of murder. They may well be. But that belief reveals a hard, cold shriveled heart.

      Evil people do evil things. Trying to justify or deny evil intent through a political prism wastes life — and by that, I don’t mean the denial of being.

      You presume the worst of your neighbors. I prefer to presume the best.

      Ag80 (f67beb)

    35. There are very easy (and untraceable) ways to get chemically pure Ammonium nitrate. (And no I won’t tell you how. /sarc)

      Have Blue (854a6e)

    36. Police have announced they arrested an Amish supporter of the Tea Party…..

      uhm, never mind. The arrest is of one “Shahzad Faisal”, apparently a naturalized citizen from Pakistan who just go back from 5 months in Pakistan. Who would have thunk???

      http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/arrest_made_in_times_sq_bomb_attack_SpJXpRSSKG3mVG35jDKUQP

      Mike (e71888)

    37. Mike:

      Arrest doesn’t mean conviction, but big surprise.

      Have Blue:

      People who don’t know this have no pot to piss in.

      Ag80 (f67beb)

    38. 36.There are very easy (and untraceable) ways to get chemically pure Ammonium nitrate. (And no I won’t tell you how. /sarc)

      Comment by Have Blue — 5/3/2010 @ 9:57 pm

      And I know how to get KNO3 from a stable. Nyah, nyah, nyah. 😉

      nk (db4a41)

    39. How I sincerely hope that the terrorist screwed something else up, and actually had the right fertilizer. So when they try again, they fix the wrong aspect. I don’t see any reason to give out accurate information on what aspects of the bomb’s design were faulty, or how they could have killed hundreds of people if they had simply made this or that tweak. Also, if the news is reported correctly, Faisal would be on a plane, headed to safety, if he had been more anonymous on the internet… I’m sure I’ll hear exactly how he could have done that, too.

      Hopefully we are not really giving that much precious intel out. Some might say the bad guys already know all this stuff… this case proves that’s not always true.

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    40. nk – But can you properly prepare your product and correctly corn it for maximum stability and yield?
      Nyah, nyah, nyah. /sarc.

      Have Blue (854a6e)

    41. If you don’t mind going up with it, you can make a car bomb with a halfway full tank of gas, a welder’s oxygen tank, and a road flare.

      nk (db4a41)

    42. nk, that’s true. They could always just steal a gas tanker, too. I doubt they will be this careless next time, and I assume there are Army improvised explosive manuals on the internet that go into great detail about this kind of stuff. It’s not like the information isn’t out there.

      I just resent that the investigation is revealing a lot of details, in what I feel is an attempt to prove they are doing something. I hope, naively, that they are controlling the information so that whoever was behind this attack is misled.

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    43. Dustin:

      The dangerous fertilizer has tags in it to verify where it came from.

      That was why I mentioned culture before. No one here is giving bad information away. Fortunately, the person who devised the Times Square bomb wasn’t bright.

      But, to your point, bad people will always find bad ways to do bad things.

      Ag80 (f67beb)

    44. “It’s not like the information isn’t out there.”

      Heck, I thought nishi’s Imam handed out instructions for those that wanted them. She needs to be careful who she’s criticizing, if you know what I mean.

      daleyrocks (1d0d98)

    45. Dustin – Actually on of the last drills I ran was based on an attack on a soft retail target with a hijacked tanker truck hauling jet fuel.
      None of my Officers had any curiosity about why a tanker truck containing high test jet fuel was idling outside a large department store.

      I think I got a little heated on that one. No one around here gets deliveries by any kind of tanker. We have no need for gasoline, jet fuel!!, diesel, or even home heating oil. If you see any of that report it and find out what is going on.

      Sorry it sounds like I’m still a little hot.

      Have Blue (854a6e)

    46. Sorry it sounds like I’m still a little hot.

      Comment by Have Blue —

      I don’t see why you’d be sorry.

      That was why I mentioned culture before. No one here is giving bad information away. Fortunately, the person who devised the Times Square bomb wasn’t bright.

      Are you saying that perhaps someone gave this guy the wrong kind of fertilizer because they were suspicious? I am probably reading too much into that comment. Obviously, it’s just not that hard to hurt people if that’s what some nutjob aims to do. It’s not the commentary here that I’m bothered by.

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    47. Dustin – If you walk into a nursery looking for high yield Ammonium nitrate but don’t know what to ask for you may very well walk out with the wrong thing. It is not like you can ask for “the stuff that blows up real good”. If you don’t know what to ask for or how to steer the inquiry properly you may just walk out with Miracle-Gro.

      Have Blue (854a6e)

    48. There’s a bumbling, fumbling, dumb-dumb quality about all of this.

      It ranges from the supposedly prestigious [rolls eyes] New York Times inserting into ones of its news reports a half-crocked claim from an anonymous caller to 911 that the failed SUV bomb was merely a distraction to something bigger—yea, like a real insider to a terror plot is going to give away his hand.

      The Bozo-the-Clown aspect then meanders over to the stupidity of things like Noo Yawk’s mayor spouting off PC-laden foolishness—“Ohs, noes, someone angry about Obamacare wants to blow up Times Square!!!”

      The sense of keystone-cop goofiness continues with investigators getting suspicious about a guy (a “white guy,” no less) taking the time to change his friggin’ shirt near a vehicle that, were he its owner, he’d undoubtedly want to run away from ASAP.

      If the terrorists weren’t even bigger fumblers and stumblers, we really would be sitting ducks.

      CBS.com:

      It also made police lose interest in the man seen in NYPD video released Sunday, who was seen taking off one shirt to reveal another underneath. The surveillance video, made public late Sunday and seen first on CBS 2 HD, shows an unidentified white man apparently in his 40s slipping down Shubert Alley. In the clip he’s seen looking back in the direction of the smoking vehicle and furtively putting the first shirt in a bag.

      Bloomberg later told CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric that the suspect behind the bombing attempt could be a domestic terrorist angry at the government who acted alone.

      “If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything,” he said.

      “There is no evidence here of a conspiracy, there is no evidence that it’s tied into anything else. It looks like an amateurish job done by at least one person,” he told Couric.

      ^ I previously was naive (and, yea, stupid) enough to believe that the act of driving and parking a vehicle loaded with explosives into the heart of New York would, for whatever reason since 9-11, not be all that easy due to the installation or creation of security cameras, tow-away zones and special chemical-sniffing devices. But I certainly didn’t think people would be so nonsensical to play the game of PC-lunacy (“Hi, Mayor Bloomberg, etc!”) in this post-9-11 era. Or something similar to newspapers whose policy for years (“Hi, LA Times, etc!”) has been to report the who, what, where, how, when and why of a crime story, BUT leave out something as basic and fundamental as the race or ethnicity of the prime suspect.

      Mark (411533)

    49. If you walk into a nursery looking for high yield Ammonium nitrate but don’t know what to ask for you may very well walk out with the wrong thing.

      Yeah, I see what you mean. I remember after 9/11 some psychos started acting suspiciously on airplanes to draw suspicion and grounds for a ‘discrimination’ lawsuit. I’m surprised they aren’t doing the same thing to farm supply stores too.

      Dustin (b54cdc)

    50. #50 Dustin:

      I’m surprised they aren’t doing the same thing to farm supply stores too.

      LOL! Now that would brighten up my day, to see somebody act up like that in a feed store.

      Besides, I love that gong sound it makes when somebody gets whacked upside the head with a shovel.

      EW1(SG) (edc268)


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