A man believed to be the driver of an SUV used as a car bomb in a failed terror attack on Times Square was taken into custody by federal and local police officials while trying to leave the country on an Airplane to Dubai. Two others were taken off the plane with him.
The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was taken into custody late Monday by FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives while trying to leave the country, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials. He was identified by customs agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport and was stopped before boarding a flight to Dubai, Holder said early Tuesday in Washington, D.C.This was incredible police work.
Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into the failed car bombing.
His connection with Pakistan, gives more credibility to the video of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud taking credit for the attempted boming.
Shahzad was being held in New York overnight and couldn't be contacted. A phone number at a listed address for Shahzad in Shelton, Conn., wasn't in service.
The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan was handling the case and said Shahzad would appear in court Tuesday, but the charges were not made public. FBI agents searched the home at a known address for Shahzad in Bridgeport, Conn., early Tuesday, said Kimberly Mertz, the special agent in charge for the FBI in Connecticut. She wouldn't answer questions about the search (source Fox).
One of Shahzad's neighbors was interviewed for a local paper
He often dressed in black, seemed a bit strange — but apologized when his landscaper accidentally launched a rock through her car’s window.
Those were the early-morning recollections of Brenda Thurman to about a dozen reporters and television camera operators outside her house on Long Hill Avenue at about 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Thurman, holding her laptop computer to show reporters a Facebook photo of her former neighbor, estimated Shahzad lived next to her for about three years with his wife and two young children, a boy and a girl.
His Facebook profile photo shows a smiling, attractive young couple, with the woman holding a baby.
“Yup, that’s him,” Thurman said.
Thurman said she didn’t have much contact with the Shahzad family, other than their kids playing together. She thought they lived there about four or five years.
“He was kind of strange. One night somebody jumped over the (neighbor’s) fence. My daughter thought someone was trying to get into the house. We went out and saw him walking around his house. He just said he was jogging. He liked to jog at night,” she said.
Thurman thought Shahzad worked on Wall Street. He often wore black, which struck her as odd.
“There was something a bit off about him,” she said.
On the other hand, Shahzad was “neighborly,” she said. He made it a point to apologize when his landscaper accidentally broke her car window.
Shahzad “disappeared” sometime last year, in May or June, Thurman said. His wife moved out later, either in June or July, she said.
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