Pakistan Stresses Cooperation on Times Square Bombing

Love | Peace Today’s headlines Pakistan about last weekend’s Times Square botched bombing are conflicting.

Dawn.com writes in one new article that US authorities believe that Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad acted alone. But in a second article US mounts pressure on Pakistan over NY plot, Dawn writes that senior officials in Washington believe that the failed attempt has ‘clear links’ with Pakistan.

Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley, US Ambassador Anne Patterson, and US special envoy Richard Holbrooke are all working closely with top Pakistani officials on the case.

The Dawn is a very thoughtful media source and may not represent the views of larger numbers of more militant Pakistanis. But its current reporting is one of calm and concern in Pakistan about the attempted bombing.

The article also reinforces the positive statements made by New York’s Mayor Bloomberg and other high-ranking officials condemning any anti-Muslim or anti-Pakistani backlash here in the US.

Al Jazeera is unusually quiet on such an important event. Today’s London Times writes that Faisal Shahzad ‘carried out a dry run’ before the Times Square attack and adds additional details about all the missteps that thankfully contributed to the bomb not going off and Shahzad being quickly identified and traced, including leaving all his keys in the ignition.

Most readers know that Faisal Shahzad comes from a well-established, successful family in Pakistan. Articles stress that US officials are confounded by his ‘liberal and educated’ background. In my reading on terrorism, this is exactly the ‘type’ of future militant that greatly concerns terrorism experts. There will be more of them in the future.

Update on Thu, May 6, 2010 by Anne

New from the NYTimes: Evidence Mounts for Taliban Role in Car Bomb Plot

“Somebody’s financially sponsoring him, and that’s the link we’re pursuing,” one official said. “And that would take you on the logic train back to Pak-Taliban authorizations,” the official said, referring to the group.

American officials said it had become increasingly difficult to separate the operations of the militant groups in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The region, they said, has become a stew of like-minded organizations plotting attacks in Pakistani cities, across the border into Afghanistan, and on targets in Western Europe and the United States.

Besides the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda, groups operating in the tribal areas are the Haqqani Network and the Kashmiri groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad.