Questions loom over Pakistani bomber’s attempt

@B= By Salman Ansari Javid
@T= The neighbors and friends of the Pakistani-American arrested in New York expressed their shock and surprise over the involvement of Faisal Shahzad in the attempted car bombing in the crowded Times Square on Saturday evening.
The 30-year-old, who migrated to America at the age of 18, was arrested on Monday night after boarding a U.A.E. bound plane.
In his home village in Mohib Banda, 25 kilometers from Peshawar, shocked residents remember Mr. Shahzad as a modern father who showed no hatred of America or sympathy with radical Islam.
Villagers say the son of retired Air Vice Marshal, Bharul Haq, grew up in a comfortable and respected middle-class family. None of Mr. Shahzad’s close family members were available for comments. Although of Kashmiri descent Mr. Shahzad was privately educated in the city of Peshawar.
In the 1980s, when Mr. Shahzad was a child, Peshawar was a staging post for the mujahideen who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a place frequented by Osama bin Laden and swollen by a morass of two million Afghan refugees.
Although according to the authorities he was being monitored from Monday afternoon, he managed to board the plane and slipped through the no fly list. It is unclear how this happened.
However, a U.S. Homeland Security official said Wednesday the government will now require airlines to check updated no-fly lists within two hours of being notified of changes in the list. The official said the airlines could be fined if they don’t comply.
Mr. Shahzad, who holds an MBA degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, told investigators he received explosive training in Pakistan’s Waziristan. Despite his admission there is no known motivation behind Mr. Shahzad’s attempt.
Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, Pakistan military’s chief spokesman said Wednesday that the Pakistani Taliban insurgent group is not behind the attempted Times Square bombing.
In a video message on Sunday, the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) claimed it had carried out the attack, in what would have been known as the first strike outside South Asia.
Mr. Shahzad worked as a budget analyst for a marketing firm in Norwalk, Conn., with two children and a well-educated wife who posted his smiling picture and lovingly called him “my everything” on a social networking website.
Shortly after becoming a U.S. citizen a year ago, he gave up his job, stopped paying his mortgage and told a real estate agent to let the bank take the house because he was returning to Pakistan. Once there according to investigators he travelled to the lawless Waziristan region and trained at a terrorist camp.
When interviewed by reporters his neighbors in Connecticut claimed he and his family were very quite people and were surprised by this news.
News of attempts like this, along with the earlier Nigerian man’s attempt to blow up the airliner on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, will serve some purposes for the U.S.
On the one hand these types of terrorist attempts help the U.S. justify its war on terrorism by raising fear in the general U.S. psyche.
Secondly, but no less important is that it will make Muslims living in the U.S. feel out of place and uncomfortable. Muslims will also be subject to even more scrutiny at the airports and ports as they enter the U.S.
“Sad, very sad,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and Britain who is now working on a book in Washington. Commenting on the attempted car bomb attack in Times Square he said “It will hurt all Pakistanis, particularly those living in the United States.”
Photo: A policeman sits in the rear of a pick-up as a donkey and cart pass in front of the locked residence of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad in Peshawar on May 5, 2010. (Photo: AFP