More on this story, and what continues to be Pakistan’s most prominent export. “Times Square Bomb: U.S. Officials Finding Foreign Links to New York Bomb Plot,” by Richard Esposito, Pierre Thomas, and Brian Ross for ABC News, May 3:
Federal authorities are closing in on the man they say tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square Saturday, and there is growing evidence the bomber did not act alone and had ties to radical elements overseas.
Police release video of possible suspect seen near site of failed attack.
One senior official said there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.
Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made “substantial progress” in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York’s Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate. […]
Other law enforcement officials said the investigation was closing in on the driver of the vehicle and an unknown number of others connected to him.
“This is moving very fast because they left behind a treasure trove of evidence in the unexploded car,” one US official told ABC News.
Officials told ABC News Senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas that the Connecticut owner of the vehicle told them he had sold the Nissan SUV last month in an unrecorded sale to an “Arabic or Latino looking man” in his 20’s or 30’s, for a few hundred dollars in cash.
The license plate on the car was apparently stolen from an auto repair shop outside Bridgeport, Connecticut, according to law enforcement officials.
The authorities told ABC News that the previous owner provided a description of the man who bought the car, and told investigators the vehicle was sold for several hundred dollars in cash, with no written records identifying the purchaser. […]
“They would not have been able to have stopped the bomb if it had been wired properly,” said former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. “Someone was able to drive into New York with what looks like bomb parts, drive right into the heart of Times Square, pull up on the sidewalk, jump up and run away and not get caught.”
The bomb bore similarities to two Al Qaeda-connected attacks on a London nightclub and an airport in Scotland in 2007. Three vehicles used in the attempted bombings contained propane gas tanks.
Al Qaeda has posted videos showing how to construct a bomb using propane tanks and gasoline.