Times Square NY Car Bomb: Taliban Claims Responsibility

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a failed car bomb attack on Times Square in New York City. The video released by the Taliban claims it was in response to the killings of al-Baghdadi and al-Muhajir among other "martyrs".

On the other hand, there's also some talk of the bomb being a response to a recent South Park Episode. And the Taliban has been known to claim credit for things it didn't do in the past.

Fortunately, the bomb didn't go off. A police officer saw smoke coming from the car and a bomb squad was able to disarm it. Mayor Bloomberg called the car bomb "amateurish". They also appear to have multiple videos of the suspect.

Thank God for incompetent terrorists and alert police officers.

“The Pakistani Taliban announced its responsibility for the New York attack in revenge for the two leaders al-Baghdadi and al-Muhajir and Muslim martyrs,” said the statement on a website commonly used by Islamists. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.

Al Qaeda’s Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri – also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir – and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the purported head of its local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, were killed last month.

The bomb, which failed to detonate, was left in a sport utility vehicle close to a Broadway theatre where a production of The Lion King was showing. It contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two five gallon gasoline containers, two clocks with batteries, electrical wires and a 4ft by 2ft metal box.

The dark green Nissan Pathfinder with tinted windows was parked near the junction of 45th Street and Broadway. It was abandoned with its engine running and hazard lights flashing. A T-shirt vendor, who was a Vietnam veteran, alerted police when he noticed smoke coming out of it.

A mounted police officer examined the vehicle and saw white smoke billowing inside. He also smelled gunpowder. Police hurriedly evacuated thousands of tourists and theatregoers, including women in evening gowns, from the area on Broadway's busiest night of the week.

Heavily armed police and FBI agents were deployed on the empty streets as bomb disposal experts used a robot to break the windows on the vehicle and remove explosive material.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said: "I think the intent was to cause a significant ball of fire."

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg returned immediately to the city from a White House dinner. Speaking at the scene, he said: "We are very lucky. Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers, we avoided what could have been a very deadly event.

"The bomb squad confirmed that the suspicious vehicle did contain an explosive device. We have no idea who did this or why." He added: "Terrorists who want to take our freedoms away from us focus on the symbol of those freedoms, and that's New York City."
​

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Pakistani-Taliban-claims-responsibility.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_...ar_bomb_include_group_behind_south_park_.html

http://www.tags-search.com/car-bomb-times-square/tag.html

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

HM, I hope the Tali ban is ready for what is coming later this year, the f**king slime ball squinty eyed maggots.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Let us not launch the boat ....

There still exists a reasonable probability that the Taliban is not behind this. New York authorities said in a press conference that while a Taliban bomb maker has claimed rsponsibility, they have no evidence to support the claim at this time. Additionally, police say they have received another communique claiming responsibility, but have withheld any details.

Police have identified the SUV's rear plate as belonging to another vehicle; they have located that car in a service garage in Connecticut. A person of interest near the scene is alleged to be a white man in his forties, seen in Shubert Alley between 44th and 45th Streets. The New York Times has obtained a stillshot of the vehicle in traffic on 45th, as well as security footage showing the person of interest.

Perhaps most curious to me, though, is that a tourist in Pennsylvania thinks he caught an image of the person of interest on videotape. If that report proves accurate and true, I'll be interested to know how and why the dots were connected. I mean, what, was the vehicle running red lights, or something?

Presently, police have not commented on whether or not the owners of the SUV or the car its rear plate was taken from are connected to the bomb plot.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.
____________________

Notes:

Grynbaum, Michael M. et al. "Police Seek Man Taped Near Bomb Scene". The New York Times. May 3, 2010; page A1. NYTimes.com. May 2, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/nyregion/03timessquare.html

Huffington Post. "Times Square Car Bomb Suspect May Be White Male Seen Near SUV". May 2, 2010. HuffingtonPost.com. May 2, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/02/times-square-car-bomb-sus_n_560285.html

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Well, let's just say that the Taliban know how to build bombs and IEDs that do detonate. So just off the cuff, it would appear that this is not a Taliban operation. The Taliban like Bin Ladin are more than willing to take credit for whatever terrorist activity that occurs around the globe these days.

So before coming to any conclusions as to who is behind this attempt at destruction, I suggest we wait for the authorities to complete their investigation. Based on what I have heard thus far, it is just a matter of time before the perps are found.

 

Well said, lets see where this low tech fizz pop goes before jumping to predictable conclusions based on "unverified authenticity". :m:

 

A few points to consider

One point I would make is that terrorists these days don't need to send out their first string. I mean, look at Richard Reid, or Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the failed shoe and underwear bombers respectively. They don't even need to bring a plane down to make Americans freak out.

So the fact that the alleged Times Square bomb fizzled means nothing in and of itself.

To the other, though, we should also consider the changing M.O. If this is Islamic extremism, then we should sit up and take notice that they have stopped aiming for hardened targets. This could mark a long-overdue tactical shift for the Terror War against the United States. If that is the case, then we can afford to notch up our worry at least slightly.

And with some voices to which I am generally sympathetic already invoking the obvious question, I think it is probably best to just wait and see what people come up with before smashing our heads against the looking glass.
____________________

Notes:

Constant, Paul. "'A White Male in His 40s'". Slog. May 2, 2010. Slog.TheStranger.com. May 3, 2010. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/05/02/a-white-male-in-his-40s

 

'No evidence' to support Taliban claim for bomb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut4HRvytoUQ

 

I think we are in agreement, we need to wait to see how the cards play out before making a judgement. However, what strikes me about this attempt at bombing is that the failure is not so much with execution as with concept. It appears to be a very poorly thought out exercise.

The shoe bomber and underwear bombers were more a failure of execution rather than concept. So that makes me think that who ever put this together was not well organized or well funded or well educated. In my mind that points to a very disorganized individual or group of individuals. I mean, an m80 as a detonator...come on now. And they removed the VIN number not realizing that there are several other parts of the vehicle upon which the VIN is stamped....just not a well thought out attempt, and thank God for that.

 

Like most everyone, I'm relieved that this was such an "unprofessional" car-bombing attempt. When the story broke, it seemed like a deliberately non-lethal provocation or test to me. Now, it's looking more like the work of a kook who fortunately know little about bomb-making.

I wish that certain opportunities in this incident would not be wasted. As authorities are saying (and I'm relieved by any government candor in this) there is probably no terrorist network to flesh out here. Still, a haphazard and ill-considered system of collective response remains, and this is a unique and valuable opportunity for everyone concerned to take a hard look at what our collective contingencies are when things get much more serious. As with shoe bombers, crotch-bombers and the like, we are missing vital opportunities in refining our national responses- especially in psychological-warfare terms. The decisive battlefields in the "war on terrorism" are in our collective thoughts.

The likelihood of the most common means of terrorism that we see around the world (lethal car, package bombs and such) is sadly very high in the USA in the years ahead. Unfortunately, our public and political response to such provocation is not appreciably evolving. We have yet to examine as a nation where we went wrong in investigating and responding to 9-11, and we remain an easily-provoked, over-extended, over-militarized, ever-fatter target for terrorists.

This would have been the perfect opportunity for the US government to set an important example, by emphasizing no credence/publicity to claims of terrorist responsibility, and in emphasizing that all such public threats will be responded to with the intention of legally and surgically interdicting those responsible, with the goal of apprehending and prosecuting them with full disclosure and legal process as a criminal matter- whoever and wherever the perpetrators and accomplices.

This would also have been the perfect opportunity (once the scene was secure) for authorities to carefully review with the public in detail exactly what the most effective public and government responses would have and should have followed, had the attempt turned deadly and much more sensational. To this day, the USA is still a nation whose first response to terrorist provocation is national freak-out from top to bottom.

This was and still remains an opportunity to rehearse more intelligent and effective collective responses to the worse that is almost inevitably coming to our streets. This is an opportunity to inform and educate the public about what responses the public should expect from their government in response to terrorist attacks. We are still a very long way in our public discourse from laying out a superior policy to rampage, and over-reach. We have yet to clearly formulate together a superior response in isolating, neutralizing, apprehending and prosecuting the guilty. We have yet to wrap our collective mind around a better way to deal, than we did with 9-11.

Because we have so massively embarked on a "War on Terrorism", there is (sadly) an much-elevated likelihood (if not inevitability) that car-bomb attacks and such will be part of our future. The USA as a people is in serious need of calibrating and refining our collective responses to what is likely to come.

It seems a kook has provided us with a highly valuable opportunity to prepare ourselves by rehearsing every public detail of a practiced, rational and effective response, when a more ruthless and deadly provocation again calls us to rage.

That we have resolved to respond more rationally and effectively to terrorism than we have before should leave no guesswork for ourselves, or for the growing numbers of people who want to attack us in our own streets. Those seeking to compound the logistical and legal reactionism and over-reach of US throught terrorism must witness our learning, and know that we are becoming ready to respond in new ways that will not serve their goals in beckoning us to our own moral and financial destruction.

 

What disturbs me is this:
Total deaths due to Islamic terrorism in the US this year, prior to the Times Square attack- 0
Total deaths due to any form of terrorism in the US this year, prior to the Times Square attack - 0
Total number of deaths due to the Times Square attack - 0

Total number of people injured deliberately by gunfire in the US this year (estimate) 17,000
Total number of people injured accidentally by gunfire in the US this year (estimate) 7,500
Total number of people murdered by gunfire in the US this year (estimate) 9,700
Total number of people dying in road traffic accidents in the US this year (estimate) 14,000

I think you may have your priorities wrong.

Oh - yes. It's not really important, because it barely relates to the US, but since yesterday 40,000 children around the world have died of malnutrition. That's 40,000. One child dying every two seconds. Is that less important than a damaged SUV? You decide.

 

We should ban knives too, those are deadly too, are they not? Actually... a week ago in my home state of CT, a mugger armed with a knife was stopped by a person with a concealed carry permit, wearing a concealed pistol. If that mugger was included in the statistic for persons deliberately injured by gun fire, then I would rather see him there, than the person he was trying to mug be in any other statistic involving his injury or murder.

I'm sure there are plenty of cases in England, where guns are banned, of gun violence despite that ban, and defenseless people getting mugged with guns and knives. The law only stops law abiding citizens.

What disturbs me is this though:

That you seem to have thought it appropriate/pertinent to try and derail somebody elses thread because you wanted to change the subject from being about Islamic terrorism to "omg guns kill people, your priorities are messed up, and there are children starving in other countries!"

BTW Soullust, good catch on that youtube video. I was going to make a comment about how there was no evidence to support the Pakistani Taliban's claim of responsibility. Why they would want to claim responsibility for that act though is beyond me... maybe they WANT us to attack them?

 

That's very true, and your numbers prove that playing the terrorism card is a political one. If you look at the terrorist attacks in the US during the last 12 months, they've mainly came from Americans. We have the guy who shot up the holocaust museum, the man who flew into the IRS building, plus the guy who murdered the cops at the Pentagon, and last but not least the militia group that was planning to murder police officers.

 

In the USA we are in critical need of a public sense of proportionality about the real risks of being a victim of terrorism here, even now as we are overdue for basic, low-tech, easily-organized terrorist retaliation/provocation.

@ BillyT Also, there are many ruthless ****s who hate the USA and want for us to attack targets in Pakistan -Taliban, al-Qaeda, any target label, and with as much targeting confusion as possible.

 

The bottom line is we don't know what this person or persons were trying to do other than kill and maim a bunch of people. It could be some extemist Muslim. It could be a Tea Partier gone wild? It would not be the first time a rogue Muslim attemped mass murder. And it would not be the first time a radical American right winger (anti-government) attempted mass murder.

I am sure time will tell. But based on what I have heard thus far, there appears to be little organization behing this attempt.

 

It appears that the plot was coordinated by several people with "international links".

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. ​

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050300847.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.breitbart.tv/wh-classifies-times-square-incident-as-act-of-terror/

 

"Claims of responsibility" should not be provided the publicity and bogus leads that they are most often intended to generate. Investigations of this sort of crime are sadly undisciplined and prone to degenerating into the same hysteria and alarmism that sensationalist media is prone to. The details that the US public needs an education in from government and media are about a disciplined national response- including how to break the habit of falling into a simplistic TV or hollywood-audience mode.

The whodunit part of the drama comes at the end of real-life crime stories, when the perpetrator(s) are on trial or dead. First priority is keeping our way of life intact while investigations proceed without imaginations, TV-villain expectations, and mob mentality running wild. If our society can't learn to respond more intelligently to botched attempts, we're going to get ourselves in much bigger trouble again by responding stupidly to the deadly attacks that are likely ahead. This is a teachable moment, and once again we're missing it.

 

I think a quote from Mad's post from the Washington Times sums it up,

"One federal law enforcement official cautioned that, while investigators are examining unspecified international communications that may be connected to the attack, "that doesn't get you to an international plot, a multi-organizational plot."

"We're just not there," the official said early in the afternoon."

 

But the fact that America is responding with derision about the ameteurishness of this attack, rather than hysteria, does.

 

As it turns out, the authorities are claiming at least one men involved in the plot was from Pakistan.

Source: Arrest made in Times Square car bomb plot

~String

 

I've also heard that there's speculation (important phrase there) that this whole thing was retaliation against Viacom for the South Park episode depicting Muhammad in a Bear Suit.

Although, I've also heard it was for other reasons as well, not that the motivation matters as much as finding out who was behind it and bringing them to justice.