Times Square Bomber Pleads Guilty: Aimed to Do "Maximum Damage"

When ABC notices, it's got to be B-A-D.

Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty Monday afternoon to trying to explode a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, and to receiving terror training from the Pakistani Taliban, and warned that further attacks on the U.S. were coming.

What? Is this the same guy whom New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had pegged as "homegrown," as in, "maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something"?

The 30-year-old naturalized American, who was born in Pakistan and lived in Connecticut, pleaded guilty to ten different terror-related federal charges, two of which carry a mandatory life sentence.

After Shahzad pleaded guilty to the first charge, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, Judge Miriam Cedarbaum said, "I gather you want to plead guilty to all [the charges.]

"Yes," said Shahzad, and then said he wanted to plead guilty and 100 times more," because he wanted the U.S. to know it will continue to suffer attacks if it does not leave Iraq and Afghanistan and stop drone strikes in Pakistan.

Hold on. Back in May, the Mayor was telling CBS that "no credible evidence so far that this attack was more than at least one person.”

Shahzad spent a full hour giving the judge a narrative of his failed bombing attempt, including his take on recent events and the history of the Middle East. He also admitted that he had placed the bomb in Times Square at its busiest in order to do the maximum damage. 

Betcha he doesn't like Israel.

Shahzad was arrested on May 3, two days after the failed bombing, at New York's JFK airport as he was about to depart on a Dubai-bound flight. 

Despite having been placed on the no-fly list by authorities, the Times Square Bomber managed to "make it to the boarding gate at JFK airport, have his pass scanned by airline workers and then walk on to the plane, which was already taxiing away from the gate." Emirates Airlines apparently was not very interested in posting his name or his passport number to their no-fly list.

A federal grand jury indicted Shahzad on Thursday on 10 terror-related charges, double the number of criminal counts he originally faced. The new counts included a weapons charge and four new terror charges. 

The 13-page indictment also included new details about Shahzad's travels to Pakistan, and names the Pakistani terror group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, from which Shahzad allegedly received bomb training. The indictment also says that Shahzad received money from an unnamed coconspirator in Pakistan prior to the failed May 1 car bombing in midtown Manhattan.

How can this be? We were told that he "got screwed by the recession just like the rest of us, only he chose to react the way he did." On the other hand . . .

The indictment alleged that Shahzad received explosives training in Waziristan, Pakistan from "explosives trainers affiliated with Tehrik-e-Taliban." It accused Shahzad of receiving $5,000 in Massachusetts sent by a coconspirator in Pakistan in February, and another $10,000 from the same coconspirator via New York. According to the indictment, Shahzad purchased a rifle in Connecticut in March that was found loaded in his car on the day of his arrest. 

Shahzad's confession to being a bloodthirsty terrorist has painted Mayor Bloomberg into a corner. The man who was so eager to assure New York City that the Times Square bomber was likely a political opponent of ObamaCare today observed, "We know that our city remains a top target for terrorists."
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