UPDATE:
“3 cops, street vendor stop Times Square car bomb from detonating; Gas, clock found inside car”
BY ALISON GENDAR, ROCCO PARASCANDOLA, KEVIN DEUTSCH AND SAMUEL GOLDSMITH
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Originally Published:Saturday, May 1st 2010, 9:34 PM
Updated: Sunday, May 2nd 2010, 3:20 AM
SNIPPET: “Three heroic cops and a quick-thinking street vendor stopped a madman from detonating a car bomb in the heart of Times Square Saturday night, law enforcement officials told the Daily News.
The T-shirt vendor - a Vietnam vet - told Officer Wayne Rhatigan there was smoke coming from a Nissan SUV on the southwest corner of 45th St. and Broadway about 7 p.m., sources said.
Rhatigan approached the car, saw the smoke, and sprang into action.
“I did a lap around the vehicle. The inside was smoking,” Rhatigan told the Daily News Saturday night. “I smelled gunpowder and knew it might blow. I thought it might blow any second.”
He grabbed two rookie female cops patrolling the area. Together, they pushed hundreds of people away from the scene as they called for backup, he said.
The Fire Department and bomb squad rushed to the scene.
What they found was stunning: a running SUV packed with three propane tanks, two red 5-gallon plastic jugs of gasoline, a clock, electrical components and a canister of gunpowder, police sources said.”
UPDATE:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2505049/posts
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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/pakistani_taliban_cl.php
“Pakistani Taliban claim credit for failed NYC Times Square car bombing”
By BILL ROGGIO
May 2, 2010 10:24 AM
SNIPPET: “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.
All indications are the tape is legitimate. YouTube has pulled the video and shut down the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel since this article was published.
Qari Hussain Mehsud. Image is from a Pakistani Army wanted poster.
“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.”