Officials increasingly see international plot in Times Square bomb attempt
By Spencer S. Hsu, Anne E. Kornblut And Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 3, 2010; 2:46 PM
The failed car bombing in Times Square increasingly appears to have been coordinated by several people in a plot with international links, Obama administration officials said Tuesday.
The disclosure, while tentative, came as the White House intensified its focus on the Saturday incident in New York City, in which explosives inside a Nissan Pathfinder were set ablaze but failed to detonate at the tourist-crowded corner of Broadway and 45th Street.
Emerging from a series of briefings, several officials said it was premature to rule out any motive but said the sweeping, multi-state investigation was turning up new clues.
Separately, White House spokesman
Robert Gibbs also characterized the incident for the first time as an attempted act of terrorism. "I would say that was intended to terrorize, and I would say that whomever did that would be categorized as a terrorist," Gibbs said, sharpening the administration's tone.
Another U.S. official, recounting a conversation with intelligence officials, said, "Don't be surprised if you find a foreign nexus. . . . They're looking at some tell-tale signs and they're saying it's pointing in that direction."
Officials cautioned that even if the investigation points toward an international link, rather than domestic or anti-government groups, that does not mean al-Qaeda or another terrorist organization is necessarily involved.
The emerging picture came as police and federal investigators searched for a man in his 40s whom surveillance cameras caught changing his shirt in an alley and looking over his shoulder near where the car was parked about 6:30 p.m., and another person seen running north on Broadway from the area. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly also said detectives had spoken with the registered owner of the car but revealed no details other than that the man was not a suspect.
Police said the bomb would have created a fireball that likely would have killed or wounded many people, making it the most serious bombing attempt in the United States since the Christmas Day incident aboard a commercial flight bound for Detroit. The investigation has focused on whether an organized group or a determined individual was responsible.
The Taliban in Pakistan claimed responsibility in a video posted on
YouTube, but Kelly and federal investigators said Sunday that no evidence had surfaced linking the group to the bomb.
On Sunday night, a
second video was posted by apparent representatives of the Taliban, showing the group's commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, promising to launch attacks in the United States.
Mehsud, who U.S. and Pakistan authorities initially believed was killed in January drone strike, was recorded saying, "The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in their major cities . . . in some days or a month's time."
The video is marked with the logo of the TTP official media wing, Umar Studios, and appears to be credible, according to Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners.
The bomb found in the Pathfinder was "a sober reminder that New York is a target for people who want to come here and do us harm," Kelly said Sunday. He said the device would have sent up a fireball from the center of a popular and bustling tourist landmark known to have symbolic importance for militant groups at war with the United States.
In the rear of the SUV, police found a makeshift bomb made up of three tanks of propane similar to those used in backyard barbecues; two jugs of gasoline; dozens of M-88 firecrackers, which are legal for purchase in some states, and metal gun case holding 100 pounds of fertilizer that police said was incapable of exploding.
In a statement, police said the explosives were "certainly capable of producing human casualties and broken windows but not enough to take down a structure," according to NYPD bomb squad experts.
A federal law enforcement official who is an expert on explosives noted that the propane tanks had not been twisted open, meaning that it would have taken longer for the fire in the car to heat up to the degree needed to ignite the fuel. Still, New York police investigators said the car bomb would have torn the car apart and caused "sizable" deaths and injuries if it had detonated.
Kelly said the firecrackers were apparently intended as the triggering mechanism. Investigators were also studying alarm clocks and batteries that appeared to be part of the device.
Investigators pored over hundreds of hours of surveillance video to pinpoint potential evidence or suspects, including the man, carrying a backpack, who can be seen changing his shirt. Based on the video footage, police think the Pathfinder entered the area at 6:28 p.m. and was discovered by vendors within minutes .
Police identified the owner of the Pathfinder but did not release his name.
"Obviously, it wasn't an accident," Kelly said. "It was somebody who brought this to the location to send a message, to terrorize people in the area."
Fingerprints and a vehicle identification number were recovered, officials said. The license plate had apparently been taken from another vehicle; it was traced to a Connecticut auto shop, whose owner is not under suspicion.
The White House said
President Obama was closely monitoring the investigation as he toured the Gulf Coast to assess the threat posed by the widening oil spill. Administration officials said Obama was notified of the incident Saturday evening as he attended the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, soon after the vehicle was discovered.
"We're going to do what's necessary to protect the American people, to determine who is behind this potentially deadly act, and to see that justice is done," Obama told reporters in Venice, La., on Sunday.
The warning triggered a police response that Obama praised for its speed and efficiency.
The search for suspects extended to airports. Transportation Security Administration officials began additional screening Sunday of passengers boarding domestic and international flights from the Boston, New York and Philadelphia areas. The measure was likened to draping a secure "perimeter" around areas within easy driving distance of potential suspect or suspects fleeing New York, another U.S. official said.
The TSA earlier Sunday stepped up security at airports along the East Coast.
According to the SITE Intelligence Group, a private firm that tracks extremist Web sites, the YouTube video claiming responsibility for the attempted bombing was released by the Taliban in Pakistan. The clip included English subtitles and audio purportedly voiced by Qari Hussein Mehsud, whom officials describe as the organizer of the group's suicide-bomb squad.
SITE said the video states that the attack was retribution for the recent killing of two al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq and for U.S. military actions in Pakistan, particularly the assassinations conducted by U.S. drone aircraft.
Terrorism analysts cautioned that the group might be asserting responsibility for propaganda value.
"Over the past week or so, every faction, from al-Shabaab in Somalia on down the list, has issued statements mourning the deaths of these guys in Iraq, saying, 'We're going to avenge them, vengeance is coming,' " said Kohlmann, the consultant who tracks terror groups.
Officials noted that the attempted car bombing took place about one block from the headquarters of Viacom, which owns the Comedy Central cable channel. Last month, the channel's animated program "South Park" received threats from Islamist groups after an episode that portrayed the prophet Muhammad in a satiric light.
Staff writers Colum Lynch and Tomoeh Murakami Tse in New York, Anne E. Kornblut aboard Air Force One, and Jerry Markon, Greg Miller, Sandhya Somashekhar, Joby Warrick, and Josh White and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
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