Car Bomb in Times Square (UPDATED)

Last night around 7 p.m. (from the the NY Daily News, via Jihad Watch):

Three heroic cops and a quick-thinking street vendor stopped a madman from detonating a car bomb in the heart of Times Square Saturday night, law enforcement officials told the Daily News.

The T-shirt vendor - a Vietnam vet - told Officer Wayne Rhatigan there was smoke coming from a Nissan SUV on the southwest corner of 45th St. and Broadway about 7 p.m., sources said.

Rhatigan approached the car, saw the smoke, and sprang into action.

"I did a lap around the vehicle. The inside was smoking," Rhatigan told the Daily News Saturday night. "I smelled gunpowder and knew it might blow. I thought it might blow any second."

He grabbed two rookie female cops patrolling the area. Together, they pushed hundreds of people away from the scene as they called for backup, he said.

The Fire Department and bomb squad rushed to the scene.

[snip]

"It looks as if the perp was trying to light it up, and was interrupted by the cops, panicked and took off," a law enforcement source said.

[snip]

The man seen fumbling with the device vanished into the crowd and had not been found as of early this morning.

Had the car bomb exploded, it "could have created a 'big fireball' and spewed out 'a lot of shrapnel' killing and maiming many. 

A closed-circuit video recording showed that the vehicle was driven onto West 45th Street from Broadway around 6:28 yesterday evening. The SUV carried Connecticut license plates that they did not match the vehicle, and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) had been obliterated.

According to Newsweek, the bomb design apparently depended on an timing device triggering commercially made fireworks, which would then ignite containers of gasoline, detonating propane tanks.

The bomb design appears to be at least loosely similar to two car bombs which failed to go off during an attempted London attack in June 2007. Somewhat eerily, those bombs were planted near Piccadilly Circus--the heart of a theater and entertainment district, the closest thing London has to Times Square. An Iraqi doctor was later convicted for that attack; he was arrested after he and an accomplice tried to drive a car bomb into Glasgow airport the day after the failed London attacks. The accomplice was killed in the airport-bombing attempt.

Jihad Watch is reporting something that the U.S. MSM is not: 

[O]ne clue comes from Jihad Watch reader Michael M.: "the vehicle was parked on 45th Street between 7th and 8th avenues in New York City. This is the location of VIACOM, Inc. offices. VIACOM owns Comedy Central. Comedy Central as we all know is the home of 'South Park'. This information is omitted from every article I've come across so far." 

However, as Jihad Watch reported:

The Telegraph has noticed: "The location is also adjacent to the Viacom building, fuelling speculation that it might be linked to the company's controversial South Park cartoon which recently depicted Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit." 

Note the now-universal mainstream media reference to "Prophet Muhammad," as if we're all Muslims now. 

Back home, according to Newsweek,

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that there is currently no evidence that the bomb was "anything other than a one-off." But on another show, she said the event was being handled as a "potential terrorist attack ... We're taking this very seriously."

UPDATE (3:30 p.m.): From The Long War Journal, via Blackfive, via Fuzislippers commenting at Potluck:

A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City.

Qari Hussain Mehsud, [image from a Pakistani Army wanted poster], the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain’s statement was pre-recorded.

All indications are the tape is legitimate. YouTube has pulled the video and shut down the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel since this article was published.

A comment from Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive:

The fact that the website and tape were prepared before the attempted bombing lends credence to the idea that the bastards claiming it are responsible. That is a particularly unwelcome development.

[snip]

It is also telling that this attack may have come from the Taliban and not al Qaeda. If they have decided to move their fight out of the Hindu Kush it completely changes the calculus of our war against them.

[snip] 

Since our PC government and officials here will do just about anything to avoid saying that our enemies are Muslim, it is left to the Telegraph in the UK to point out that the vehicle was parked in front of the offices of Viacom. Hmmm aren't those the same gutless weasels who failed to even show the likeness of Mohammed on South Park. Wouldn't that be ironic if even failure to do this resulted in a fatwa and a bomb? May 20th is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, don't forget.

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