TALIBAN CLAIM RETALIATION FOR APRIL KILLINGS
(FRANCE 24 / REUTERS) - A car bomb defused in New York’s Times Square was a potential terrorist attack, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Sunday, but officials held off identifying who may be responsible.
The Taliban in Pakistan said it planted the crude device made of propane, gasoline and fireworks to avenge the killing in April of al Qaeda’s two top leaders in Iraq as well as U.S. interference in Muslim countries.
The claim could not be immediately verified but security analysts urged caution, saying there could be links to Islamist groups or to a domestic cause in the United States.
Police, tipped off by a street vendor, found the bomb in a sport utility vehicle in Times Square when the entertainment and shopping area of Midtown Manhattan was packed with tourists and theater-goers on a warm Saturday evening.
“We’re taking this very seriously,” Napolitano told CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “We’re treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack.”
Police were examining security camera footage for clues after the SUV was recorded traveling in the area, as forensics experts pored over the vehicle and the bomb parts.
Senior FBI and police officials were due to hold a briefing at 3 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) on Sunday.
Napolitano and other officials have not specified whether the suspects could be Americans or foreigners. Police have said no motive or suspect has been identified.
“The odds are quite high that this was a lone wolf,” Senator Chuck Schumer told CNN, speculating that the suspect could be sympathetic to an Islamist or domestic group.
New York and its 8 million people have been on high alert since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 when airliners hijacked by al Qaeda militants toppled the World Trade Center’s twin towers, killing more than 2,600 people.
Last year, police said they thwarted a plot to bomb the New York subway system. Two men have pleaded guilty in that case.
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A vendor saved the day when he saw smoke curling from the car at about 6:30 p.m. and alerted Officer Wayne Rhatigan.
The materials were primitive, but if the SUV had blown, officials said the inferno would have eclipsed the blazing lights of the Crossroads of the World.
"I think the intent was to cause a significant ball of fire," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
"We are very, very lucky," said a police source.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the feds were taking it very seriously, treating it as "a potential terrorist attack."
"Right now, we have no information other than it is a one-off," she told ABC.
"Nonetheless, we are alerting state and local law enforcement - everybody - to be on their toes."
A Taliban official in Pakistan took credit in an audio tape posted to YouTube, but officials were hesitant to link the failed attack to international terrorist groups, calling it more likely a "one-off" or "lone wolf."
Preliminary signs suggest "that this was not part of any plot by al Qaeda or another known terrorist organization," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
He said the feds picked up no overseas "chatter" before Saturday night's attempted attack.
Ny authorities say the federal federal government is not giving them with adequate of what they have to have most to head away from a different terror strike from the nation's major township: cold, challenging money.
The Ny Law enforcement Department finds by itself from the awkward placement of obtaining make use of Saturday night's near-catastrophe -- a possibly devastating auto bomb found within the heart of Situations Rectangular -- to attractiveness for the federal authorities for much more resources.
Think and community lawmakers, along with NYPD authorities, are pointing out what would seem evident -- that Ny Town is and continues to become a prime terror target. They are trumpeting the part of law enforcement officials in defusing a bomb and investigating the scene soon after an SUV carrying the system was found out Saturday night.
But Ny authorities seem weary of consistently wrangling while using federal federal government -- dating again on the Bush government -- for income to service new technologies and plans aimed at stopping an assault in America's biggest area and also the fiscal capital on the planet.
Asked Sunday afternoon what was stopping the NYPD from building a essential surveillance and detection plan, Law enforcement Commissioner Raymond Kelly answered with just one word: "Money."
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Obama Thanks Vendor for Alerting Law enforcement to Instances Rectangular Bomb
The NYPD has much more officials -- about 35,000 -- compared to FBI has workers. Its Counterterrorism Bureau, formed in 2002 next the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, was the initial of its form inside country and encompasses a number of plans aimed at safeguarding towards several varieties of attacks. One particular unit sets up automotive checkpoints together critical roads and bridges; an additional performs on harbor safety; one more researches approaches to detect weapons of mass destruction; one more analyzes intelligence.
Inside the wake of Saturday's Instances Rectangular event, authorities are drawing heightened awareness on the magnitude of NYPD counterterror courses known as the Reduced Manhattan Safety Initiative as well as the Solidifying the Towns Initiative. The latter is often a partnership in between community authorities as well as the Department of Homeland Safety measures to fixed up detection devices for nuclear and radiological weapons.
The Decrease Manhattan Safety Initiative is really a broader area strategy that begins using a enormous surveillance process -- comprehensive with safety cameras, license plate audience and on-the-ground officials. Surveillance cameras, though controversial, are supplying investigators with important illustrations or photos of action all-around Occasions Rectangular previous to the vehicle bomb was observed -- even though individuals cameras usually are not but element on the superior monitoring network that township authorities are attempting to set up.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., strategies to phone for the Obama government and Congress to completely fund the Holding the Metropolitan areas software along with send federal financing to New York City Area to increase its surveillance plan into mid-town Manhattan.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have previously created a letter to congressional colleagues urging them to restore $20 million in following year's finances to the Solidifying the Towns routine.
"The Obama government has eliminated all financing for that," King told Fox News on Monday. "I'm fighting as difficult as I can ... but we have to have to hold the battle up."
King stated the system is necessary to guard the perimeter of Manhattan and watch for threats coming through the surrounding boroughs.
Kelly explained Sunday how the department desires to broaden the reduce Manhattan safety measures routine into midtown -- in which the Situations Rectangular bomb was observed -- but that it's only inside the preparing stage.
"It normally takes dollars -- federal cash is what we are searching for in this consider," he mentioned.
He explained that this vision for that routine is to own not merely surveillance cameras, but "analytic software" that will fixed away from alarms when particular suspicious pursuits are detected.
As an example, an alarm could go away from if a bag was left unattended, or if a automotive drove together the identical block several occasions.
"This can be a total new region for us. It has a great deal of assure in that consider, we are really enthusiastic about this," Kelly claimed.
But in an interview Sunday on CNN, Schumer explained, "We need to have Washington to back again New York City up."
He touted New York's surveillance program and echoed King's phone to combat for the cash.
"This event is usually a reminder, we need to have every one of the guide we could possibly get," Schumer stated.
King and Gillibrand wrote within their letter that far more financing is required not just to safeguard New Yorkers, but anyone who relies for the region's economic system.
"(Holding the Towns) supplies an operational capability to interdict a radiological or nuclear weapon in 1 area, which could avoid that weapon from currently being shipped and detonated elsewhere from the country. It could also stop the widespread financial damages that can be linked using a detonation from the New York City tri-state area," they wrote. "Without this further financing, neither completion of detection operate and sensor networking nor replication in other excessive danger locations is going to be achievable."
