Tuesday, May 4, 2010

"P" is for Shahzad's Provenance

It's like a freakin' jihad Sesame Street lesson--Faisal is a Pashtun from Pabbi in Peshawar, Pakistan, reports Reuters:
...[Pakistan's Interior Minister Interior Minister Rehman] Malik said Faisal's family came from northwestern Pakistan which is mainly inhabited by Pashtuns and where Islamic militants are active.

"He belongs to Pabbi," he said, referring to a small town near the main northwestern city of Peshawar about an hour's drive from Islamabad.

"He has Pakistani identification documents. We are making further checks."

He added there had been no arrests in Pakistan so far.

A source familiar with the investigation in the United States said Faisal was of Kashmiri descent.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States and has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda operatives and handed over many of them to the United States after it signed up to the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

The Taliban in Pakistan said on Sunday it planted the bomb in Times Square to avenge the killing in April of al Qaeda's two top leaders in Iraq as well as U.S. interference in Muslim countries.

Some officials voiced scepticism about the claim. But former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel, who last year oversaw an Obama administration strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, cautioned against dismissing a possible role by the Taliban.
So much for the "lone wolf" theory.

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