WASHINGTON, May 9, (Agencies): The United States charged for the first time Sunday that the Pakistani Taleban was behind a Pakistani-American’s failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in the heart of New York City.
“We’ve now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taleban was behind the attack,” Attorney General Eric 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 he was working at their direction.”
Faisal Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a Pakistani air force officer, was pulled off a plane to Dubai and arrested Monday for allegedly leaving a sport utility vehicle rigged to explode in New York’s Times Square on May 1.
The United States has responded by stepping up the pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamic extremists operating in safe havens in tribal areas along Pakistan’s rugged border with Afghanistan.
The New York Times said General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, urged Pakistan’s General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Islamabad on Friday to quickly begin a military offensive in North Waziristan, the stronghold of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban.
“We’ve made it very clear that if — heaven-forbid — an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences,” Clinton told CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, according to excerpts released by the TV network.
Clinton said there had been a “sea change” in cooperation by Pakistani authorities but added, “We want more.”
John Brennan, the White House deputy national security adviser, charged that Shahzad was trained and apparently funded by the Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan, or TTP.
“He had extensive interaction with the TTP. And this is something that we are, again, looking at very carefully, understanding the extent of that interaction and the extent of the direction and guidance that was given to him,” he told Fox News Sunday.
Brennan portrayed Shahzad as having been influenced by the “murderous rhetoric” of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban, but told CNN’s ‘State of the Union” show that he had been “very cooperative” under questioning.
He said Shahzad had traveled back and forth to Pakistan, working with the TTP over a period of several months before returning to the United States in February.
“What we are trying to do is determine now exactly who helped him, who worked with him and making sure we are able to uncover and then to address successfully these individuals who are trying to carry out other attacks,” Brennan said.
The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility for the failed attack a week ago, but it was initially discounted because the plot was so sloppily executed and the bomb so primitive it appeared to be the work of an amateur acting alone.
But US authorities have since concluded that the Shahzad case reflects a change in tactics by Islamic extremists, who have been hammered over the past year by an onslaught of US missile strikes.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, told NBC News that “at this point I have no information that it’s anything other than a one-off.” Likewise, Gen. David Petraeus, who as head of US Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told The Associated Press that Shahzad apparently operated as a “lone wolf.”
Brennan said on Sunday that the attempted bombing shows that the capability of overseas terrorist organizations is being degraded.
“They now are relegated to trying to do these unsophisticated attacks, showing that they have inept capabilities in training,” he said.
The link between an attack on US soil and terrorist groups operating inside Pakistan opens up a new chapter in relations between the two countries. Until recently, administration officials have said they thought Islamabad was doing all it could.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Pakistan has recently stepped up efforts to root out extremist militants.
“The Pakistanis have been doing so much more than 18 months or two years ago any of us would have expected,” Gates told reporters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He referred to Pakistani Army offensives, dating to spring 2009, against Taliban extremists in areas near the Afghan border, including in South Waziristan.
Gates said the Obama administration is sticking to its policy of offering to do as much training and other military activity inside Pakistan as the Pakistani government is willing to accept.
“It’s their country,” Gates said. “They remain in the driver’s seat, and they have their foot on the accelerator.”