PrairiePundit

 Breitbart: Law enforcement officials say a 55-year-old New York man reportedly used AI to help him build bombs that he planned to detonate in Manhattan. Michael Gann of Long Island, New York, is accused of building several homemade bombs with the help of AI, an endeavor he claims was “easier than buying gun powder,” according to court documents obtained by NBC News. ... Law enforcement officials say a 55-year-old New York man reportedly used AI to help him build bombs that he planned to detonate in Manhattan. Michael Gann of Long Island, New York, is accused of building several homemade bombs with the help of AI, an endeavor he claims was “easier than buying gun powder,” according to court documents obtained by NBC News. The suspect, who was indicted by federal prosecutors on Tuesday, allegedly transported the bombs from Long Island to Manhattan, storing five of them and four shotgun shells on the roof of an apartment building in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Court documents re...

Image via Wikipedia IBD: The Times Square bomber's reaction to being sentenced to life imprisonment tells us a lot about our current struggle. Namely, he reminded Americans that jihadists are in a war to the death with us. It's been a long time since September 11th, but Islamism's enemies of Western civilization are on the warpath every bit as much as they were on that day. After attempting to blow up a Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square in New York City in May, possibly killing dozens of innocents, Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad said he wished to "plead guilty 100 times over." On Tuesday, as he was sentenced to life in prison in federal district court, the University of Bridgeport MBA grinned and defiantly warned Americans to "brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun." He promised that "the defeat of the U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future." Shahzad is a classic sleeper terrorist, trained...

Washington Post: A New York man unwittingly transferred thousands of dollars from the Pakistani Taliban to fund May's failed Times Square bombing, authorities said Wednesday. Mohammad Younis, 44, was indicted on charges of operating an unlicensed money transfer business known as a hawala, an informal network popular in South Asia and the Middle East. He was arrested Wednesday at his home in Long Island, N.Y., by agents of the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. Court documents say that in April, Younis met with Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty in the attempt to detonate an explosives-packed Nissan Pathfinder on May 1 at one of New York's busiest intersections. The failed attack dramatized what the U.S. government calls the growing threat of homegrown terrorism. Federal officials said Younis provided Shahzad with thousands of dollars for the bombing at the direction of a co-conspirator in Pakistan. They did not identify the co-conspirator but noted that Shahzad said at...

Dawn: A Pakistani man accused of being an Al-Qaeda operative was “deeply involved” in a plot targeting Britain and the United States, a lawyer told an extradition hearing in London Wednesday. Abid Naseer was arrested earlier Wednesday in northeast England on a US warrant, accused of involvement in a failed Pakistan-based campaign against American and British cities. The 24-year-old was the “point of contact” in Britain for the alleged transatlantic plot and is accused of planning attacks in Manchester, northwest England, lawyer Melanie Cumberland, for the US government, told the court. Officials here said US authorities have lodged a request for Britain to extradite Naseer, who was one of five people charged over the plot in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York. ... He is alleged to have participated in the failed New York subway bomb plot. It is not surprising he was found in the UK. The other obvious place to have looked would have been in the Pakistan tribal ar...

Fox News: A failed plot to set off bombs in the New York subway system last year was part of a larger Al Qaeda terrorist conspiracy that planned a similar attack in England, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday. In an indictment unsealed Wednesday, prosecutors added several Al Qaeda figures to the case, including Adnan Shukrijumah, an FBI most-wanted terrorist. Shukrijumah, one of the Al Qaeda leaders in charge of plotting attacks worldwide, was directly involved in recruiting and plotting the New York attack, prosecutors said. Attorney General Eric Holder has called that plot one of the most dangerous since 9/11. Two of the men indicted Wednesday -- Abid Naseer and Tariq Ur Rehman -- were linked to a previously undisclosed companion plot in England. "These charges underscore the global nature of the terrorist threat we face," said David Kris, the Justice Department's top national security prosecutor. ... Adnan Shukrijumah may get an up close and personal ...

Dawn: The US Embassy warned Friday that terrorist groups may have ''established links'' to a high-class catering company in Pakistan that a security official said is owned by a suspect arrested over the failed car bombing in Times Square. In an unusual e-mail message to US residents in Pakistan, the embassy said U.S. government personnel had been instructed to avoid using the Hanif Rajput Catering Service, a well-known firm often used by foreign embassies in Islamabad. The US embassy said the suspicions about the catering company have been shared with Pakistan government agencies. The message said Rajput was owned Rana Ashraf Khan and his son Salman Ashraf. Earlier this week, a senior security official said that one of at least two people arrested in Pakistan over links to a Pakistani-American detained in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing was called Salman Ashraf. He identified him as the son of the owner of Rajput catering service. ......

From McClatchy: U.S. pressure on Pakistan may risk terrorist backlash Resistance to terror causes terror backlash. Can McClatchy give us any more nutty ideas on how to deal with terrorist?

NY Times: Three Pakistani men taken into custody during a series of raids across the Northeast as part of the investigation into the failed Times Square car bombing may have provided money to the man who has admitted carrying out the unsuccessful attack, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday. Mr. Holder said it was unclear if the men knew that the funds they provided were going to be used for an act of terrorism — one that Obama administration officials have said was aided and directed by the Pakistani Taliban. As of late Thursday, they were being detained on civil immigration violations and had not been charged with a crime. Several people briefed on the case said that Faisal Shahzad , the naturalized Pakistani immigrant who the authorities say drove the crude car bomb into Times Square, traveled to the suburban Long Island community of Ronkonkoma in the days before the failed May 1 attack to collect several thousand dollars in cash, some of which he used...

Michael Mukasey: Some good news from the attempted car bombing in Times Square on May 1 is that—at the relatively small cost of disappointment to Broadway theater-goers—it teaches valuable lessons to help deal with Islamist terrorism. The bad news is that those lessons should already have been learned. One such lesson has to do with intelligence gathering. Because our enemies in this struggle do not occupy a particular country or location, intelligence is our only tool for frustrating their plans and locating and targeting their leaders. But as was the case with Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab, who tried to detonate a bomb aboard an airplane over Detroit last Christmas Day, principal emphasis was placed on assuring that any statements Faisal Shahzad made could be used against him rather than simply designating him an unlawful enemy combatant and assuring that we obtained and exploited any information he had. On Sunday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that in regard to terrori...

Ralph Peters: ... First, the administration has plainly realized that the terror danger is much higher than it believed one week ago. Second, it means that Shahzad really has been talking -- almost certainly tipping us that there are more America-bound terror trainees out there (or already here) and letting us fit together important pieces of the intelligence puzzle. Third, the White House obviously fears more terror attacks sooner rather than later. This sudden policy shift and media mobilization by an administration that's usually lethargic on security issues means that folks at the top are worried about the political costs of a successful terrorist strike. For all the backslapping over how quickly we nabbed Shahzad after the failed attack (a combination of superb police work and dumb luck), it seems at last to have dawned on the administration that, for all his technical ineptitude, Shahzad came very, very close to killing and wounding hundreds of Americans ...

Dawn: US drones fired a barrage of 12 missiles, destroying a training camp for extremist fighters in Pakistan's tribal belt and killing 14 militants on Tuesday, security officials said. It was the second strike in the same mountainous area close to the Afghan border since Sunday, when the United States accused the Pakistani Taliban of being behind a plot to detonate a car bomb in Times Square 10 days ago, reports AFP. The training camp was run by militants attached to Taliban-linked Afghan warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is reputed to control up to 2,000 fighters who attack US-led forces over the border in Afghanistan, officials said. The compound was in the Lowara Mandi area of North Waziristan district, seen as a fortress of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal badlands. “According to the latest reports we have, a total of 14 militants were killed. They targeted a compound and vehicles parked outside the house,” one senior ...

LA Times: Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, grew up in a Pakistani family whose circle of acquaintances included two future militants — a Taliban leader and one of the participants in the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, a government source said Friday. Officials now believe this family background may help explain why Shahzad, after immigrating to the United States, grew radicalized and allegedly contacted the Pakistani Taliban via the Internet. The group would have welcomed him because as a naturalized U.S. citizen, he could easily travel to and from Pakistan. Agents interviewing Shahzad, 30, who lived in Connecticut, also learned that he was upset over repeated CIA drone attacks on militants in Pakistan, his native country. He was also troubled by marital and financial difficulties and a foreclosure on his home, said the government source, who has been briefed on the investigation. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ...

Reuters: The mosque linked to associates of the man accused of the failed Times Square bombing has recruited young men for militant training in the past and may still have links to a banned group, security officials and residents said. The Bat'ha Mosque , in a lower middle-class neighborhood in the north of Karachi, is often visited by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) leaders, neighbors said, but it tries to conceal its links to the banned group. "On the face of it, the mosque has no more links with Jaish, but that's not true," said a resident who was once involved in the management of the mosque. "They are still close and leaders of the group regularly come here to attend congregations," he said. JeM was formed in 2000 to liberate what it considers Indian-occupied Kashmir but has splintered since then. It is blamed for numerous attacks against Pakistani civilian and m...

Guardian: ... "Somebody's financially sponsoring him, and that's the link we're pursuing," a US official said. "And that would take you on the logic train back to Pak-Taliban authorisations." Another line of inquiry pursued by investigators is how Shahzad came into contact with the Taliban. Al-Qaida has attempted to recruit Americans or those with visas to enter the US without raising suspicion, such as the Nigerian who is accused of attempting to blow up a flight over Detroit on Christmas Day. But it appears more likely in Shahzad's case that he was either recruited while in Pakistan or arrived in the country seeking to volunteer to launch an attack inside the US. That potentially provides an easy way for the Taliban to take credit for an attack without investing in men or resources. The FBI says that Shahzad has admitted receiving training in Pakistan. But the authorities have apparently yet to establish exactly who Shahzad established...

Times: he man accused of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Times Square carried out a dry run days before the failed attack, it has been claimed. Faisal Shahzad, who is in custody in New York on terrorism and weapons charges, drove from his home in Connecticut to the theatre district on April 28 in the vehicle that days later he would pack with explosives, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press. Mr Shahzad then returned on April 30 - the day before the attack - to drop off a black Isuzu get-away vehicle near to the target site. But despite these preparations his escape from the scene on May 1 was hampered when Mr Shahzad discovered he had left the keys for the getaway vehicle inside the explosive laden car, the official said. He was forced to travel by public transport after leaving Times Square and returned on Sunday May 2 to retrieve the Isuzu even as investigators were searching for suspects. Mr Shahzad used the black vehicle to...

Washington Post: As investigators continued questioning Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad on Wednesday, the Obama administration was preparing to deliver to Pakistan a detailed request for urgent and specific assistance on the case. U.S. officials said that they had reached no firm conclusion about whether Shahzad had ties to any domestic militant group in Pakistan but that information gathered thus far continued to point to the Pakistani Taliban, which has asserted responsibility for the bombing attempt. The question of which group, if any, was involved is an important one for the future of the uneasy counterterrorism alliance between the United States and Pakistan. The Pakistani military has been waging war against the Pakistani Taliban for more than a year, with U.S. assistance. ... A U.S. counterterrorism official said it was possible that two or more groups had worked together in grooming Shahzad for a terrorist mission during an extended trip he made to...

That is E.J. Dionne's thesis. Here is his lead: Ever heard the one about the guy who hated government until a deregulated Wall Street crashed, an oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico, a coal mine collapsed, and some good police work stopped a terrorist attack? ... Just exactly what did the government do after the coal mine disaster. The people doing the frantic work to try to save the coal miners were with the company that owned the mine. What exactly has the government done with respect to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. They have sent a few from the military to try to help contain the oil and stop it from reaching the beaches, but most of that effort was already underway by the oil company that has taken responsibility for the mess. And, it is oil company engineers in Houston who are working on a solution to the problem and people hired by the oil company who have built the containment towers that will be dropped over the leaks today. It is oil company employees w...

Joan Vennochi: AMERICANS CAN handle the truth. But when it comes to terrorist acts on American soil, government officials are reluctant to give it to us straight from the start. Instant analysis of the Times Square bomb scare kicked off with the usual official disclaimers: Don’t presume a Muslim extremist had anything to do with it. It was likely a “lone wolf’’ operation, suggested Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, or, as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speculated, “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something.’’ Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, said it was being treated as a “potential terrorist attack’’ but it could be a “one-off’’ or isolated incident. The arrest of Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, quickly ended alternative theories. Shahzad is not a Tea-Partier-gone-wild or someone unable to take the pressure of home foreclosure, as some news reports intimated. He told authorities his efforts to blow ...

NY Times: ... Officials said that after two days of intense questioning of the bombing suspect, Faisal Shahzad , evidence was mounting that the group, the Pakistani Taliban, had helped inspire and train Mr. Shahzad in the months before he is alleged to have parked an explosives-filled sport utility vehicle in a busy Manhattan intersection on Saturday night. Officials said Mr. Shahzad had discussed his contacts with the group, and investigators had accumulated other evidence that they would not disclose. On Wednesday, Mr. Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a retired senior Pakistani Air Force officer, waived his right to a speedy arraignment, a possible sign of his continuing cooperation with investigators. As his interrogation continued, Department of Homeland Security officials directed airlines to speed up their checks of new names added to the no-fly list, a requirement that might have prevented Mr. Shahzad from boarding a flight to Dubai on Monday night before his ar...

From the AP: NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery We know that the guy is an Islamic religious bigot who was trained in his "craft" by the Taliban who say the attack was for revenge because of the drone strikes. So why is the obvious motive a mystery to the AP? I think they were hoping it would be someone from the Tea Party where they could manufacture an Obvious motive.