A video clip by Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad broadcast on an Arabic TV channel shows that the United States is a target of militant Islam.
Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, pleaded guilty last month to having tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square. The explosive device, made of gasoline, propane, firecrackers and alarm clocks, was left in a smoking car in downtown Manhattan this past May 1 - but did not go off. Its placement Law enforcement teams were able to track Shahzad down, removing him from a plane headed to Dubai - his final destination was Pakistan - at JFK International Airport.
The video clip was filmed before the bombing, in the style of other Muslim suicide terrorists - though the series of alarm clocks he used as timers were apparently geared to make sure he would be far away when the bomb went off.
The clip, broadcast on the Dubai-based Al Arabiya news station and also appearing on its YouTube channel, shows a black turban-clad Shahzad sitting next to a gun and promising that “this attack on the United States will also be a revenge attack for all the fighters and oppressed Muslims. Eight years have passed since the [United States'] Afghanistan war and you shall see how the Muslim war has just begun and how Islam will spread across the world.”
He specifically mentioned, to explain why he sought revenge, the deaths of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders - one in Iraq four years ago and one in Pakistan last year. The tape also features Shahzad declaring that Islam will defeat democracy and Communism, and adding, “I really wish the hearts of the Muslims will be pleased with this attack."
Threatens U.S. in Court
In an unrepentant court appearance in Manhattan last month, he said he wanted the U.S. to know it will continue to suffer attacks if it does not stop drone strikes in Pakistan and leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also confirmed that he had placed the bomb in Times Square at its busiest hour in order to do the maximum damage – which could have included dozens of deaths, or more. He confessed to ten counts in connection with the bombing attempt, and admitted learning how to make bombs at a terrorist camp run by an Islamist Taliban terrorist faction in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. He now faces life in prison.