Pakistani Taliban Claim Credit for Failed NYC Times Square Car Bombing

The Long War Journal ^ | Sunday, May 2, 2010 | Bill Roggio

[kristinn]

A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City.

Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain’s statement was pre-recorded.

"This attack is a revenge for the great & valuable martyred leaders of mujahideen," Qari Hussain said. He listed Baitullah Mehsud, the former leader of the Pakistani Taliban who was killed in a Predator strike in August 2009, and Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the former leader of al Qaeda Islamic State of Iraq who was killed by Iraqi forces in mid-April. And although he was not mentioned, an image of Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was also displayed in the images accompanying the audiotape.

Qari Hussain also said the failed attack was "revenge for the Global American interference & terrorism in Muslim countries, especially in Pakistan for Lal Masjid operation," a reference to the July 2008 Pakistani military assault on Islamists holed up in the Red Mosque in Islamabad, as well as Predator strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas and the arrest and detention of Pakistani scientist Aifa Siddique.

YouTube video of claim

[Left2Right]

Pakistan can hardly be called an ally. They supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and still support the Taliban in their country. You are really out to lunch on this one, especially bringing in the name of your supposed savior in on this one.

I guess you are ok with the 3,000 innocent men, women and children who were murdered on 9-11. I guess that about sums up your idiotic "Christian" statement.

You sound like a typical lib to me.

[worst-case scenario]

I haven’t forgotten them at all. That’s just a straw man you’re throwing out that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

You are ready to turn NW Pakistan into a dead zone, and condemn as a lib for not thinking it’s a great idea.

As it turns out, Pakistani Taliban had probably nothing to do with this botched attempted carbomb yesterday. Maybe you should wait until you get more evidence before so blithely pronouncing the need to kill people.

I agree with you that the government of Pakistan is perhaps the most untrustworthy of our relationships in that region, although Maliki is close. But your or my assessment of their untrustworthiness makes no never-mind. They are officially an ally of ours in the War on Terror. They were proclaimed to be our ally by Gorge W Bush.

You don’t carpet-bomb your allies. Period.

[SierraWasp]

Here! I found the transcript of the "This Week" show I was talking about:

TAPPER: Let me just interject. To be fair to conservatives, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican, and Florida Congressman Connie Mack have had some tough words about parts of this law. Here's McDonnell on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCDONNELL: I'm concerned about the whole idea of carrying papers and always have to be able to prove your citizenship. That brings up shades of some other regimes that were not particularly helpful to democracy and civil rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And Florida Congressman Connie Mack said in a press release, "This law of frontier justice, where law enforcement officials are required to stop anyone based on reasonable suspicion that they may be in the country illegally, is reminiscent of a time during World War II when the Gestapo in Germany stopped people on the street and asked for their papers without probable cause."

George, these are conservative Republicans, very -- I mean, nobody would question Bob McDonnell's bona fides as a conservative. And they are voicing serious concern about this law.

[DocRock]

Bookmark

[Left2Right]

I still think we should carpet-bomb NW Pakistan.

[worst-case scenario]

You want a thousand more carbombs? Carpet-bomb Pakistan. It’s simply not a smart use of American force, and the blowback is tremendous. The bomb in Times Square is probably b/c some guys are pissed off about civilians killed in predator drone strikes. There will always be vengeful survivors and family, unless you plan on genocide.

I think the smarter answer is intelligence services and wet-work. Kill as many of the bad guys as you need to - just don’t make it so flippin’ obvious that it’s the US that did it. (They’ll blame us anyway, but they won’t have obvious proof.)

[Left2Right]

Nope, you are so wrong it isn't even funny. People do not become suicide bombers or even homicide bombers because someone in their family or friends got killed. People become terrorists because they get conditioned into it by their society. If what you said is true, then we should still be getting terrorized by the Germans and the Japanese, but we don't because they are, were, and will most likely continue to be, civilized societies.

The Taliban is a cult of death and ignorance of which the people of NW Pakistan are part of. The only reason they started this war (and it is a WAR they started and are continuing) was due to their cult of death. The only way to end it is to destroy it. Trying to take out a leader here or a leader there only creates more "martyrs" for their cause. Only when the cult has suffered so much that they lose their will to fight will there be peace.

Anyway, I find it a waste of time to banter with you, you seem to live in some weird fantasy realm not based on reality. And I still think you sound like a lib.