It was unclear in this story, but Faisal Shahzad was one of the men seized on the plane to Dubai. “NYC bomb suspect seized aboard Dubai-bound plane,” by Tom Hays and Colleen Long for Associated Press, May 4:
NEW YORK (AP) – A Pakistani-born U.S. citizen was hauled off a plane about to fly to the Middle East and arrested in the failed attempt to explode a bomb-laden SUV in Times Square, authorities said Tuesday. One official said he claimed to have acted alone.
Faisal Shahzad was on board a Dubai-bound flight that was taxiing away from the gate at Kennedy Airport when the plane was stopped and FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives took him into custody late Monday, law enforcement officials said….
Shahzad, 30, had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into the failed car bombing.
Shahzad became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year shortly before traveling to Pakistan, a federal law enforcement official in Washington said, speaking on condition of anonymity amid the ongoing investigation.
Investigators hadn’t established an immediate connection to the Pakistani Taliban–which had claimed responsibility for the botched bombing in three videos–or any foreign terrorist groups, a law enforcement official told the AP.
“He’s claimed to have acted alone, but these are things that have to be investigated,” the official said….
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the arrest should not be as used as an excuse for anti-Muslim actions. “We will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers,” he said….
Bloomberg ought to be ashamed of himself. He should be making statements about protecting Americans of all creeds, and calling the Muslim community in America to account for its tolerance of jihadists. There has never been a backlash against innocent Muslims in the U.S. It is a fiction that we only hear about when a Muslim plots mass murder of Americans. And then we hear about it endlessly, as if Muslims were the victims rather than the perpetrators.
More than a dozen people with U.S. citizenship or residency, like Shahzad, have been accused in the past two years of supporting, attempting or carrying out attacks on U.S. soil, illustrating the threat of violent extremism from within the U.S.
What kind of people? What kind of extremism?
Among them are Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, a U.S.-born Army psychiatrist of Palestinian descent, charged with fatally shooting 13 people last year at Fort Hood, Texas; Najibullah Zazi, a Denver-area airport shuttle driver who pleaded guilty in February in a plot to bomb New York subways; and a Pennsylvania woman who authorities say became radicalized online as “Jihad Jane” and plotted to kill a Swedish artist whose work offended Muslims.