US Attorney General Eric Holder says Pakistani Taliban guide Shahzad in Times Sq case

[Shortline Bus]

AG Holder says Pakistani Taliban guided Faisal Shahzad; Hillary Clinton fires own shot at Pakistan

 

By James Gordon Meek In Washington and David Saltonstall In New York

NY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

 

Sunday, May 9th 2010

 

"Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was no lone wolf - the Pakistani Taliban "was behind the attack," Attorney General Eric Holder asserted Sunday.

 

"We know that they helped facilitate it," he said of the shadowy terror group with links to Al Qaeda. "We know that they probably helped finance it - and that [shahzad] was working at their direction."

 

 

The unprecedented throwdown came as Secretary of State Clinton fired her own, blistering diplomatic shot Sunday night across Pakistan's bow - all but accusing that nation's government of harboring Osama Bin Laden.

 

"I'm not saying that they're at the highest levels, but I believe that somewhere in this [Pakistan] government are people who know where Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda is," she told CBS' "60 Minutes," adding that Pakistani officials likely know as well the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban.

 

Added Clinton sternly: "We expect more cooperation to help us bring to justice, capture or kill those who attacked us on 9/11."

 

Shahzad, 30, was nabbed last Monday, 53 hours after authorities say he parked a crude car bomb in busy Times Square that was defused before it could blow.

 

At the outset of the investigation, officials suggested that Shahzad, a married, seemingly innocuous, naturalized U.S. citizen living in a Connecticut apartment, had been acting alone.

 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano went so faras to call the bomb plot a "one-off," clearly trying to downplay concerns of a wider conspiracy.

 

But Holder's comments upended those premature reassurances and underscored a chilling new truth: Nearly a decade after 9/11, the Pakistani Taliban has for the first time exported its evil and launched a direct strike, albeit unsuccessfully, at the heart of New York.

 

"We've now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack," Holder told ABC's "This Week."

 

"They were intimately involved in this plot."

 

Clinton's remarks underscored the new, more urgent message emanating from the White House: It's time, Pakistan, to step up to the plate in battling the terrorists in your midst.

 

"This is a threat that we share," the secretary of state said. "There is no time to waste in going after that common enemy as hard and fast as we can, and we cannot tolerate having people encouraged, directed, trained and sent from Pakistan to attack us."

 

The one-two punch from Clinton and Holder came as the U.S. military stepped up attacks on Waziristan, the lawless tribal region of Pakistan that has long served as a haven for the Pakistani Taliban and their allies - among them Bin Laden, U.S. officials believe."

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/09/2010-05-09_holder_pakistani_taliban_directed_financed_faisal_shahzad_in_failed_times_square.html#ixzz0nYvlhx52

[NX Express]

This was pretty obvious as soon as they caught the guy.

 

I wish they'd catch Osama already.

[Shortline Bus]

This was pretty obvious as soon as they caught the guy.

 

I wish they'd catch Osama already.

 

 

Agreed. Not only that but Homeland Chief Janet Napolitano looks like a fool for so early trying to downplay the Pakistan connection and trying to portrait this case as a 'home grown domestic terrorist' along lines of Tim Mckvie and the 1995 OKC case. She should have kept her mouth shut until the arrest.

And Thankfully, Obama did not pick Napolitano IMO as her VP pick when she was Arizona Gov:tdown:.

[MTR Admiralty]

Nab Bin Laden and all of those top-leaders.