This should be, in Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s words, a “game-changer.” And there are indications that the U.S. is reconsidering its stance toward Pakistan’s ongoing existence as a jihadist sanctuary if a successful attack on the U.S. is linked to Pakistan. But shouldn’t an SUV full of propane tanks, fireworks, and fertilizer wired to explode in Times Square be a little too close for comfort? Has 9/11 been so thoroughly forgotten that it would take another episode of mass murder to break the politically correct inertia in Washington?
“‘Pakistan Taliban’ behind Times Square bomb plot,” from BBC News, May 9:
The US has evidence the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attempted car bombing in New York’s Times Square, Attorney General Eric Holder says.
Mr Holder said the militants helped to facilitate the plot, and “probably helped finance it”.
US officials had previously rejected claims by the group that it was behind the 1 May plot.
A Pakistani-born US citizen has been charged with the attempted bombing in New York’s tourist quarter a week ago.
Faisal Shazhad, 30, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, has co-operated with investigators, and admits receiving bomb-making training in the Pakistani region of Waziristan, prosecutors have said.
“We’ve now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack,” Mr Holder said on ABC television’s Sunday current affairs talk show This Week.
“We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it, and that [Shahzad] was working at their direction.”
Mr Holder said there was nothing to suggest the government of Pakistan was aware of the plot.
He also said the Obama administration was satisfied for now with the level of co-operation it was receiving from Islamabad into the investigation of the attempted bombing….