After foiled NYC attempt, some wonder if car bombs are headed to U.S. soil
Posted May 4, 2010 6:25 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
“They can be incredibly effective, and easier to carry out, so that’s the question on everybody’s radar screen right now,” said Gary LaFree, the director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.
“Clearly al-Qaida and radical Islamic groups have been probing defences in all sorts of ways, and they keep innovating.”
And terrorism on a smaller scale than, say, the Sept. 11 attacks seems to be an option being explored.
Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani man who became an American citizen last year, is accused of plotting to set off a massive car bomb in New York City’s crowded Times Square over the weekend. He’s facing terrorism and mass destruction charges.
Officials claim he’s confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it Saturday night into the tourist mecca that is Times Square, where he tried without success to detonate it.
Shahzad has also allegedly told authorities he received explosives training in Pakistan, but there’s no word of any connection to al-Qaida.
Authorities in Pakistan say he came from a wealthy family in the country’s northwest, and is the son of a top Pakistani air force officer. Several people have been detained in Pakistan in connection with the Times Square bombing attempt.
LaFree points out that Shahzad’s attempt is high-profile in a post 9-11 world. But he adds there have been dozens of car bomb attacks in the United States, the biggest being the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and one in Oklahoma City in ’95.
In the United States, New York is by far the most common target of terrorists. From 1970 to 2007, New York was targeted in more terrorist attacks than Washington, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles combined. That went for car bomb attacks as well.
“Our organization has a huge database, and we were able to find 58 vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks involving various terrorist groups in support of various causes just in New York since the 1970s, but they didn’t get as much attention in the pre-9-11 world,” LaFree said.
“This type of terrorism is not as uncommon as we might think, but what happens when you have a black swan event like 9-11, is that you go back and reassess these things.”
The problem with car bombs and suicide bombing plots is that they’re harder for law enforcement agencies to uncover. Lone attackers can work without communication devices that are often used by investigators to catch would-be terrorists in the planning stages of their attacks.
The Times Square attempt was foiled not by a high-tech sting involving a network of anti-terrorism agencies, but in part by a watchful T-shirt vendor who noticed the smoking SUV and alerted police. They smelled gunpowder and evacuated the area.
In an apparent attempt to crack down on any future car bomb attacks, the New York City Police Department is setting up thousands of closed-circuit security cameras in lower Manhattan and the Times Square area in a city that already operates under a state of high security.
In a televised statement earlier Tuesday, Obama said attempted attacks like the one in Times Square are aimed at forcing Americans to live in fear.
“As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorized. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated,” he vowed.
Some New Yorkers proved their president’s point, seemingly unfazed Tuesday by the notion of car bombs now being de rigeur among the terrorists who frequently target their city.
“Honestly? It annoys me more than scares me. I’m tired of New York being the focus of people’s craziness,” said Bethany Bryan, 30, a Manhattan book editor.
“And Times Square? Seriously? Who are you trying to kill? Tourists and Nathan Lane? The guy who dresses up like Elmo? Come on now.”
