Times Square case: Ex-American envoy underscores foreign connection in growing Pak threat
May 5th, 2010 - 2:57 pm ICT by ANI
New York, May 5 (ANI): The arrest of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad for his role in the foiled Times Square bombing, has once again underscored the growing prominence of Pakistan as the staging ground for attacks against the United States and other Western countries.
“Pakistan is the perfect example of a country that we need to prevent falling under terrorist control. As much of a tragedy as that explosion at Times Square might have been, if Pakistan falls to the Taliban or another radical extremist group, they would be in control of Pakistan’s very substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons,” John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News.
“That’s why this is so critical to understand really what the linkages might be here,” he added. According to the Fox News report, the Obama administration continues to remain overtly concerned about Pakistan being a base for foreigners to train for terror plots abroad.
Officials say that after the suspect in the Times Square case became a citizen, he traveled to his native Pakistan and admitted to recently receiving bomb-making training in that country.
In December, five American Muslims from the Washington, D.C., area were captured and charged in Pakistan with plotting terror attacks. They were arrested in an area south of Islamabad after they disappeared, and they are accused of conspiring with Pakistani militants.In October, U.S. citizen David Headley and three others were arrested and charged with conspiring with Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Mumbai attacks and with planning an attack against the office of the Danish newspaper under fire in the Muslim world for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Headley, who is of Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty in March.
In September, Colorado resident Najibullah Zazi was arrested and charged with plotting to bomb the New York subway system. According to the Department of Justice, Zazi, an Afghan, revealed during questioning prior to his guilty plea in February that he received his training from Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban has also claimed credit for the Times Square attempt, but New York officials have questioned that claim. (ANI)
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