Officials increasingly see international plot in Times Square bomb attempt

Source: WaPo

The failed car bombing in Times Square increasingly appears to have been coordinated by several people in a plot with international links, Obama administration officials said Tuesday.

The disclosure, while tentative, came as the White House intensified its focus on the Saturday incident in New York City, in which explosives inside a Nissan Pathfinder were set ablaze but failed to detonate at the tourist-crowded corner of Broadway Avenue and 45th Street.

Emerging from a series of briefings, several officials said it was premature to rule out any motive, but said the sweeping, multi-state investigation was turning up new clues.

Separately, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also characterized the incident for the first time as an attempted act of terrorism. "I would say that was intended to terrorize, and I would say that whomever did that would be categorized as a terrorist," Gibbs said, sharpening the administration's tone.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050300847.html?hpid=topnews

That can't be good.

Kidding-ish. Until I see proof, my money is on a teabagger.

Google "terry nichols philippines" (Nichols, you may recall, was Tim McVeigh's sidekick).

"The failed car bombing in Times Square increasingly appears to have been coordinated by several people in a plot with international links, Obama administration officials said Tuesday."

Um, how can they say something on Tuesday, when it's only Monday, and they didn't know about this LAST Tuesday?

It's a bank holiday here so I've got all my days confused, I've thought it was Sunday most of the day. :)

Their is an idea, that before people hear about things, it is planned out, so people are always behind on information. Although that is more of a vague analogy.

Then it might be a claim to seeing the future. Either prophesy, or some think in terms of time travel.

Or it might be to mess with peoples heads.

Or it might be a typo.

My personal suspicion is that it is somehow related to the way news is distributed these days. It very easily could have been a report, written for use on Tuesday, based upon information distributed today "on background". Or, it was distributed "not for use until Tuesday" and was copied, virtually verbatum, but used today. 3rd possibility is that they are using some sort of "dynamic text" which was written originally for a Tuesday release, but the dynamic nature got stripped off before the story was moved to Monday.

I was matching it to the Stargate story with Daniel Jackson seeing 3 seconds into the future. :)

Those thoughts are random indeed.

aiming for conspiracy rumors here. Poor writing, that article.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 6 months some conspiracy theorist cites precisely this article, saying that since Obama said it on Monday he had to have said it on the previous Tuesday--something he could only have known if he were complicit.

I've seen weaker evidence. Not much weaker, but when the bar's so low that small ants have trouble getting under it, there's not much weaker.

When that happened, they apprehended an Arab terrorist with bomb-making materials who turned out to be some poor guy taking tools home to fix a window or something.

Be a good citizen and live in fear. :evilgrin:

:silly:

Death to swedish meatballs!

they used a Nissan and not a GM. :sarcasm:

Where is that?

Or the USA. Or Planet Earth. Kinda goes with the time-traveler space alien angle.

Could be some truth behind that alien conspiracy scoop!

At least, any international source does not appear to have been one with any competence at bomb-making. (Thank goodness!!!)

But have the same effect as a bomb...to put terror in our hearts and minds.
Even I could have made a better bomb and I have never made one in my life.

....saying this was a simple distraction.

Or maybe the bomber just trying to save face......

it is one thing to speculate. it is another thing to have near certainty with scant to no evidence.

see: ft hood shooting, duke lacrosse case, etc.

And if it did turn out to be teabaggers, they will milk it for all it's worth. But on the other hand, if there is proof that it was done by Islamic extremists, then those same people at DU will try to downplay it. It's funny how having an agenda can do things like that.

it really is amazing

recall that even after the ft hood shooter was outed as an extremist muslim (screaming allahu akbar as he gunned people down, etc.) people still either tried to explain it away or downplayed it. because it didn't fit the metanarrative.

there is a very good chance this perp is some sort of rw USA nutbag. and a quite good chance he isn't, or that there are international terrorist ties

If it's an Islamic terrorist it will be "An incompetent, failed, and meaningless joke" that doesn't reflect on any larger problem.

Sigh.

I've made the case often today.

I'm looking at facts and making intelligent inferences, not painting the way I think groups of others think and want to think.

Some people are serious and some only want to see clowns.

Speculation on DU is particularly, ah, robust in general. :D

it just gets a little too circle jerk conformist sometimes

To say everyone that has said it was a teabagger, republican or similar sub-homo sapiens to, 'Have dreamed that they were...?'

Just saying.

everybody filters the unknown through their prejudices.

some people think they are so enlightened they don't do that, but it's extremely common

Is it not Monday? Is the Washington Post clairvoyant?

I've been wrong before...but I just think it's a lot more likely that this operation was a home-grown right-wing extremist special. The 'telltale sign' is the incompetence. Or rather, a special kind of incompetence:

1) It was not a suicide attack.

If it were one of these Al Qaeda or neo-Taliban type organizations, surely someone could have been found who would have been willing to sit with the bomb till it went off. Since, as we know, that's really the best way to ensure that the attempt won't fail. American right-wing terrorists seem to view their own lives as too valuable to sacrifice, even for what they consider a worthy cause. The exception would be the shooting spree followed by self-execution; but there we get into an argument about the definition of terrorism, so moving on...

2) Whoever planned it doesn't seem to have had a whole lot of experience or have been getting seasoned advice.

He/she/they used wrong kind of fertilizer, for starters. Unless the ultimate goal was simply to cover Times Squre in dung, the only thing that explains that is that the person or persons responsible simply didn't know that not *all* fertilizer explodes. You'd think someone plugged into a high-powered international terrorist organization would know where to buy the hot shit, as it were.

3) The construction of the 'bomb' is bizarre. It's like they just made the thing out of whatever was handy. Out here in the midwest, propane is the fuel of choice for gas grills, and propane tanks are ubiquitous in grocery stores and even at gas stations. M-88 fireworks are also sold here in great quantities during the summer from barnlike outlet stores. Rifle cases and fertilizer are also easily come by out here. In fact, if i were a highly paid profiler whose job was to bullshit to the FBI, I would tell them, "You're looking for a white guy in a pickup truck somewhere in the midwest." Which wouldn't, of course, be that helpful; but then profiling never is.

4) Double-parking the SUV seems to have been a stupid idea. Was it part of the original plan? Or was this operation masterminded by someone who lives in a land of wide-open spaces and strip malls who simply didn't realize that it would take a long frickin' time to find a parking space in Times Square on a Saturday night?

Time alone will tell, I suppose. Not being, myself, clairvoyant, I wouldn't like to put money on it; but we'll see what happens.

The Plaid Adder

Perhaps the piece wasn't supposed to be released until tomorrow. Newspapers often, for instance, release stories about, say, a presidential debate while the debate is still going on.

How you doin', Plaidder? Long time no see. :hi:

They're quoting the administration officials as having said all this stuff on "Tuesday." Even if the piece itself were intended for release on Tuesday, there would be no need to pretend that comments the writers got on Monday were actually made on Tuesday.

The mind boggles,

The Plaid Adder

maybe the bomber misunderstood the whole "suicide" thing and left the vehicle to jump off a bridge.

I think they would be the last to use the method that has killed so many US servicemen and women.

Source: Washington Post

By Spencer S. Hsu, Anne E. Kornblut And Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 3, 2010; 3:52 PM

The failed car bombing in Times Square increasingly appears to have been coordinated by more than one person in a plot with international links, Obama administration officials said Tuesday.

The disclosure, while tentative, came as the White House intensified its focus on the Saturday incident in New York City, in which explosives inside a Nissan Pathfinder were set ablaze but failed to detonate at the tourist-crowded corner of Broadway and 45th Street.

Emerging from a series of briefings, several officials said it was premature to rule out any motive but said the sweeping, multi-state investigation was turning up new clues.

Separately, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also characterized the incident for the first time as an attempted act of terrorism. "I would say that was intended to terrorize, and I would say that whomever did that would be categorized as a terrorist," Gibbs said, sharpening the administration's tone.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050300847.html?hpid=topnews

let's arrest the fuckers 1st. they're going to be caught soon.

the incompetence of the bomb screams rightist terror, but the location screams muslim terror. i have no idea, and i wouldn't be surprised to see either.

International terrorists are said to have sites which tell about using car bombs with gas and propane tanks. (It's my understanding that they say nothing about fertilizer or firecrackers.)

I'M NOT POINTING TO THE TEA PARTY NUTS. Much more likely it's a copy-cat home-grown terrorist trying to be like McVeigh (which better fits the facts we now have--though the WH undoubtedly has access to much more). I'm guessin Neo-Nazi.

Parallels between NY City attempted bombing and Timothy McVeigh’s bombing:

The botched NY bombing shares a number of striking parallels with the Timothy McVeigh bombing in Oklahoma City beside the obvious vehicle-building-walk-cooly-away narrative . . . although that, in itself, is very compelling–the botched bomber replicating the act of his (or her?) hero in broad strokes. But there seem to be a couple light strokes as well.

The botched bomber placed eight bags of fertilizer which the investigators say was non-explosive, into a gun box. If he knew the fertilizer was useless, it would be a clear homage to McVeigh. (The gun box being a tip of the hat to McVeigh's military background.) (If he didn't know this it could still be an homage, hoping to replicate his hero's methods as closely as possible.)

The NY attempted bomber locked the van's doors, leaving the keys inside. Some accounts say McVeigh left the keys in the Ryder's cab and locked the doors. (I think the case is that he took the keys, but there is no accounting where these people get their information. Source: http://history1900s.about.com/cs/crimedisaster/p/okcitybombing.htm)

Fireworks went off in the NY van alerting vendors. The attempted bomber appeared to be inept in a number of ways, so it is not likely that the clock set off the fireworks. It is more likely that he lit a long fuse. Similarly, McVeigh lit two fuses just before he left the Ryder.


Additionally, MSNBC played a show based on The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist on the 19th of April.

I could be way off, but if I was leading the investigation I'd be putting resources into this question, hoping to find him before he is successful with his homicidal intentions.


Therefore, in an investiation taking these matters seriously:

I’d look into far-right web/hate sites, those where McVeigh is discussed glowingly. Maybe Free Republic.

Since the person’s issues were important enough to kill for, I think his alignment to McVeigh would be apparent in his screen name (anagram of “Timothy McVeigh”? a character’s name in The Turner Diaries?)

I'd look very closely at those who passionately referenced MSNBC’s April 19th The McVeigh Tapes: those who ranted against MSNBC's commentary and/or those who relished new McVeigh quotes from the tapes.

I’d perhaps put some resources looking into the extreme fringe of the Tea Party, but I think the far-right hate sites would be more fruitful . . . (In which case the FBI should soon be onto him . . . or her!)

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/03/2292809.aspx

International plot? Not clear
Posted: Monday, May 03, 2010 3:40 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: Security, Pete Williams

From NBC's Pete Williams and Domenico Montanaro
The car left in Times Square Saturday night is yielding several promising clues, officials say, leading investigators to question people who are believed to have some connection to the SUV.

One such person made several phone calls overseas, but a senior official says it isn't yet known whether the calls had anything to do with the attempted bombing.

"We live in an international society," the official said. "The calls may be completely innocent."

The official declined to say what the connection was to the car and how it was traced. But it shows that investigators are pursuing what they believe to be promising leads.

The Washington Post reported the following with this headline: "Officials increasingly see international plot in Times Square bomb attempt."

The registered owner claimed he sold the vehicle to somebody who looked middle eastern or hispanic for cash three weeks ago. If they think the registered owner is involved, they might release something like this to throw the perps off and get them feeling too comfortable with themselves.

It's been done in investigations a lot. I remember the case of the woman who drove her car into a lake with her two babies strapped in their car seats many years back. The police "leaked" information that would confirm they were going with her story that a black man had car jacked her car, all the while they were building their case against her.