Pakistan assures cooperation in Times Square bomb case
Richard A. Serrano and Christi Parsons
Tribune Washington Bureau
Alex Rodriguez
Los Angeles Times
Washington…Senior Obama administration officials said Thursday they have obtained assurances from Pakistan that it will help bring to justice any collaborators in last weekend’s attempted Times Square bombing, and that suspect Faisal Shahzad continues to provide information about militant activities in that country.
“We are pushing all the right buttons that you would expect us to push to try to understand what happens in Pakistan and how that related to the actions taken by the American citizen last weekend,”” said Philip J. Crowley, an assistant secretary of state. “We’re trying to understand and trace what did this individual do when he was on the ground in Pakistan, who did he meet, and what are the implications of those actions.”
Pakistani officials said Thursday they have arrested and were questioning four suspected members of the banned militant organization known as Jaish-e-Muhammad. Shahzad, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, told investigators he had recently received bomb making training in Pakistan..
One of those arrested, Sheikh Mohammed Rehan, allegedly drove with Shahzad from Karachi to Peshawar in July 2009. And CNN reported Thursday that authorities questioned but did not arrest Shahzad’s father, Bahar Ul Haq, a former Pakistani Air Force officer.
Pakistani authorities also conducted several raids in the North Karachi and North Nazimabad neighborhoods in search of other Jaish-e-Mohammed members who may be connected with the Shahzad case, a police official there said. One of the raids was at an apartment building where it was believed Rehan lived.
Complicating the task of sorting out complicity is the overlapping nature of militant groups in Pakistan. Jaish-e-Muhammad, which is thought to have set up military training camps in the country’s volatile tribal areas along the Afghan border, has recently formed strong ties with Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.
U.S. counterterrorism officials who are investigating Shahzad’s time in Pakistan said there are indications he also may have had contact with the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban, a violent militant group known mainly for attacks against the Pakistani government.
One counterterrorism official said they have not been able to conclude that the plan to bomb Times Square was conceived by the Pakistani Taliban or that Shahzad received training from its operatives. “Connections to the Pakistani Taliban are plausible, but it’s important for a complete picture to develop before reaching a final conclusion,” the official said. “We’re not there at this point.”
But one official said this week that it is possible the Times Square attempt may have been a response to the escalating drone US drone campaign against Pakistani militants.
At the White House, President Obama met in the Situation Room with top military and diplomatic staff members for more than an hour, and again in the afternoon with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Afterward, advisors refused to repeat earlier pronouncements that Shahzad was a lone operator, though they declined to say which terrorist groups or militants he might have been connected with in Pakistan.
Even as they press for help from Pakistan, however, administration officials are not entirely sure what they would do with suspects once they have them in custody. Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, said he does not know if suspects would be brought back to the U.S. and charged in the federal court system, or whether the Pakistani government would prosecute them there.
“This is a rapidly developing, on-going investigation,” Gibbs said.
On Capitol Hill, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. told a Senate subcommittee that three days after his arrest, Shahzad is still providing valuable information to FBI and counterterrorism agents. “Mr. Shahzad is continuing to cooperate with us,” Holder said. “We will continue to pursue a number of leads as we gather intelligence relating to this attempted attack.”
A federal law enforcement source, who could not be named because the investigation is ongoing, said the questioning of Shahzad includes his recent trip to Pakistan, before he returned to the U.S. in February, and “the people and groups he has met with there.”
“That,” the source said, “is what we want to know more about. That is where this thing leads us.”
Shahzad, a resident of Connecticut who often traveled back and forth to Pakistan, his country of birth, was arrested late Monday night after allegedly leaving a Nissan Pathfinder packed with propane and fertilizer in Times Square on Saturday. The vehicle did not ignite, and he has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Holder said that if convicted, Shahzad faces a maximum of life in prison.
In several videos that surfaced last weekend, Pakistani Taliban leaders appeared to claim credit for the attempted Times Square bombing. But since then reports from the region have quoted members of the organization denying it had ties to Shahzad.
“This is a noble job and we pray that all the Muslim youth should follow Faisal Shahzad. But he is not part of our network,” Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the group, was quoted as saying by the Christian Science Monitor.
Also contributing to this report were David Cloud and Ken Dilanian in Washington.
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