Taliban Claim About Times Square Now Considered ‘Plausible,’ Officials Say

After it first surfaced on a newly created YouTube channel shortly after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's first press conference about the discovery of a car bomb in Times Square, U.S. counterterrorism officials dismissed as empty propaganda a Pakistani Taliban message in which Qari Hussain Mehsud, allegedly the group's chief, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." But experts inside the government acknowledge that a Pakistani Taliban connection to the failed attack now appears increasingly "plausible" in light of revelations about the links to Pakistan of Faisal Shahzad, who federal authorities on Tuesday charged with several terrorist offenses related to the failed attack.
 
In a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Justice Department prosecutors reported that following his arrest late Monday night by border-control officers stationed at New York's JFK airport, Shahzad "stated that he had recently received bomb-making training in Waziristan, Pakistan." The complaint says that Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani native who became a naturalized American, returned to the U.S. in February following a five-month visit to Pakistan, where he claimed he had been visiting his parents and where his wife remained behind.
 
Prosecutors allege that around one hour after a prepaid, throw-away cell phone he bought received four calls from a number in Pakistan, Shahzad, or whoever was using his phone, twice called the person who had put the Nissan Pathfinder used in the bomb attempt up for sale on Craigslist. (Later that same day, the feds say, Shahzad met with the SUV owner in a supermarket parking lot in Connecticut; Shahzad handed the seller $1,300 in hundred-dollar bills and drove the Pathfinder away.)
 
So far Obama administration officials, including the president himself, have limited their comments about a possible connection between Shahzad and foreign terrorist groups to generalities about how this is being investigated. Specific groups have not been publicly cited, and no group is mentioned in the complaint charging Shahzad. Counter-terrorism officials contacted by Declassified acknowledge, however, that they are now taking a very hard look at possible involvement of the same Pakistani Taliban movement whose quick claim of credit after the bomb's discovery they initially scoffed at.
 
One U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, noted that while Shahzad may well turn out to have been in contact with the Pakistani Taliban, his performance as a terrorist is somewhat below the militant group's usual deadly standard. “The guy said he’d gotten explosives training in Waziristan. While that doesn’t prove the Pakistani Taliban was behind this, they certainly operate there," the official acknowledged. But the official continued: "Although the TTP [Pakistani Taliban] has long since proven its deadly skill with all kinds of bombs, Shahzad came up short. He must not have been much of a student, or maybe he missed a few classes. With some of these terrorist groups, it seems as though they’re defining down their concept of success, at least where actions in the United States are concerned. Because that’s the brass ring for them, they view a simple attempt as positive—the results, or lack thereof, are almost secondary.”
 
Officials warn that Shahzad's connection to the Pakistani Taliban still is nowhere near fully proven. For a start, the Taliban message claiming credit for the failed bombing was very nonspecific, mentioning neither Times Square nor even New York City. Officials in Washington also say they cannot yet confirm reports that Pakistani authorities have arrested possible confederates or contacts of Shahzad, cautioning that until investigators look deeper, it could simply be a case of Pakistani authorities rounding up a gaggle of usual suspects who later could be let go.
 
The fact that many U.S. government experts were initially so skeptical of any Pakistani Taliban—or for that matter any foreign terrorist—involvement in the amateurish bombing attempt, however, is likely to raise new questions, from Capitol Hill intelligence experts, among others, as to whether U.S. agencies are keeping up with trends in Islamic terrorism. Until now, few official experts believed the Pakistani Taliban had either the desire or the capability to launch attacks inside the U.S., although there is little question of their enmity toward Americans. But similarly, until investigations—and disclosures by the suspect himself—showed that failed Christmas Day underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had evidently been trained and sent on his mission by operatives of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, the official U.S. government view was largely that the Qaeda Yemen branch had neither the desire, nor capability, to launch attacks inside the United States.