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N.Y. bomb defendant pleads guilty

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A Pakistani-born U.S. citizen charged with planting a car bomb in Times Square said Monday that he was a “Muslim soldier” who plotted the attack for months and was prepared to shoot if anyone tried to stop him after he abandoned his explosives-laden SUV on a busy Manhattan corner.

In a calm but defiant tone, Faisal Shahzad, 30, pleaded guilty to all 10 charges stemming from the May 1 plot and warned that it was one small part of a war being waged by Muslims against Americans. As long as U.S. forces remain active in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, “we will be attacking” the United States, he told U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum in a packed Manhattan courtroom.

Since his arrest, prosecutors say, Shahzad has spoken at length about his actions and motivations, but Monday’s hearing was the first time he spoke out in court. His demeanor and words underscored the depth of bitterness toward a country that granted him citizenship in April 2009, months before he traveled to Pakistan on a quest to gain entry to the Pakistani Taliban. He underwent training in December and January.

Cedarbaum asked whether he understood that his actions violated U.S. law.

“I would not consider it a crime,” he said.

His responses to Cedarbaum’s questions, on topics including his family and his educational background, highlighted what terrorism experts say is the danger of so-called homegrown militants, who evolve from seemingly benign backgrounds to become intoxicated by international extremist groups.

In a statement, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said that if Shahzad’s bomb had gone off, it “could have led to serious loss of life” and that his guilty plea “ensured that he will pay the price for his actions.”

The U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, Preet Bharara, said that there had been no plea agreement between the government and Shahzad, and that the investigation continued.

Shahzad has said he built the bomb alone and carried out the attack himself after receiving training in Pakistan. Law enforcement officials continue to look into how he received the cash to finance the plot.

In her questioning, Cedarbaum appeared to find it hard to believe that Shahzad could have worked alone, asking him repeatedly whether he had any help within the United States. Shahzad insisted he had not, although he acknowledged receiving $12,000 from the Pakistani Taliban.

“You built the bomb all by yourself?” she asked more than once. “You didn’t have a manual?”

Shahzad described in a clear, matter-of-fact voice how he planned for months to join the Pakistani Taliban, receive terrorist training and put his lessons into practice in the United States.

On May 1, Shahzad said, he built a bomb in his apartment in Bridgeport, Conn., loaded it into the back of his Nissan Pathfinder, parked the vehicle on a crowded Manhattan corner, then walked away and waited for a boom. He said he chose a Saturday evening in Times Square to inflict the most damage possible.

The bomb was supposed to go off within 2 ½ to five minutes, he said.

“I was waiting to hear a sound, but I didn’t hear any sound,” Shahzad said.

When he realized the bomb had not detonated, Shahzad walked to Grand Central Terminal, caught a train home, watched the news of the incident and began planning his escape, he said.

Shahzad said he had carried a semiautomatic 9-millimeter Kel-Tec rifle folded into a laptop case and planned to use it if anyone tried to arrest him as he walked away from the car bomb and made his way back to Connecticut.

“Just for killing,” Cedarbaum said.

“For self-defense,” Shahzad responded.

Shahzad was arrested two days later aboard a jet scheduled to leave for the Middle East.

“One has to understand where I’m coming from. I’m a … Muslim soldier,” he said politely but firmly to Cedarbaum, who interrupted his statement repeatedly to ask him about his upbringing and alleged terrorist training.

Asked what he had learned about bomb-making in Pakistan, Shahzad said, “The whole thing” — from how to set a timer to how to package the explosive elements. In building the Times Square bomb, Shahzad said, he used fertilizer, gas cans and cylinders in hopes that if one element failed to detonate, another would.

None went off, and Times Square vendors alerted police after noticing the suspiciously parked SUV and seeing smoke coming from it.

At times, the courtroom exchanges sounded like cocktail party conversation. Shahzad, responding to Cedarbaum’s quizzing, described his “wife and two beautiful kids,” his former job as an account analyst with Elizabeth Arden and his years growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, attending schools where he learned English on top of his native Pashtun. But he admitted this did not help with his bomb-making training, since the only manuals he received were in the Urdu language.

At other times, the courtroom repartee veered into verbal sparring. When Shahzad referred to himself as a soldier, Cedarbaum noted that his intended victims were civilians.

“If people select the government, we consider them all the same,” Shahzad responded.

When Cedarbaum asked whether that included children, Shahzad said women and children had died in U.S. strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“It’s a war,” he said, describing himself as “part of the answer” for Muslims fighting that war.

Shahzad is expected to be sentenced in October and faces life in prison.

tina.susman@latimes.com

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