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Who is behind the New York Times Square car bomb?

Who is behind the New York Times Square car bomb?

  • Overseas Islamic terrorist group (El Qaeda, Taliban, etc)

    Votes: 7 21.9%

  • Home grown Islamic terrorist

    Votes: 3 9.4%

  • Right wing, anti government group

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Right wing, anti-governemnt individual nutcase

    Votes: 2 6.3%

  • Nutcase with nutcase agenda secondary to mental illness induced delusions

    Votes: 4 12.5%

  • Someone trying to disguise a crime as terrorism.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • A young, nerdish prankster with poor social skills and sociopathic tendencies

    Votes: 2 6.3%

  • A left winged anarchist type

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Christian fanatic trying to fight sin in Times Square

    Votes: 2 6.3%

  • Other, please share your theory

    Votes: 12 37.5%
  • Total voters
    32
Some right wing moron. Odds are...
 
Police are looking for a white male in his 40s.

That really narrows it down. :roll:
 
Update from the BBC: BBC News - Failed car bomb was not al-Qaeda plot, says NY mayor

Major points:
1)The engine was still running with hazard lights flashing when the SUV, emitting smoke, attracted the attention of a street vendor.

2)Another component of the device was a rifle cabinet packed with more than 100lb (45kg) of fertilizer, although police said it was not of a type volatile enough to explode.

3)"That's when the smoke started coming out and then we heard the little pop, pop, pop - like firecrackers going out," he said. Duane Johnson, local hand bag seller who if was not the first to spot the car was the first to approach it.

4)Commissioner Kelly said they were looking for an unidentified white man, thought to be in his 40s.

5)They(the car plates) belonged to a car owner in the state of Connecticut, who told officers he had sent the plates to a scrap-yard.

So everything about this so far points to some yokel hillbilly "terrorist" if he even had a goal which could be defined as terrorist. Compounding on what I said earlier this information, the rifle cabinet isn't something you find in New York often. And assuming the owner of those registration plates didn't send them cross country, the guy went to some local scrapyard, meaning I'd start my investigation into the area and people from around that scrapyard. There's a good chance that given the amateurish nature of this "attack" that the wanta-be bomber is a local of whatever scrapyard those were sent to. In fact the fore-thought to not use plates directly registered to him is probably the only "positive mark" this bomb attack gets.

The fertilizer also shows that this guy didn't know what he was doing AND did not rehearse, every good terrorist and criminal knows you practice before the big show. Again, either he's not smart or he doesnt have the funds/motivation to build two of these "devices."

Lastly I really want to find out what kind of fire was going on in this vehicle, I have a very strong hunch that this guy started a small fire in the SUV and expected the thing to explode in seconds, as some reports say he was caught on camera running, even sprinting, from the SUV. Starting a small fire would also explain the popping sound heard by Mr. Johnson and the police, the first thing that would be lit and go off would be the fuses on firecrackers and fireworks. The other three things in the SUV were the propane tanks, which would not have lit first, the fertilizer, which was never going to go off anyway, and the black powder, which I haven't heard of recently and I'm thinking may not have actually been in the SUV, but the jury's out on that.

If there was black powder that probably would have gone off before the guy could run far enough away, maybe he did rehearse and discovered that(I can picture this guy doing a trail of powder like Loony Toons cartoon). Also black powder does not explode just on its own, it burns extremely fast, the only time it "explodes" is when its in a confined space. And once it has an exit, most of the pressure is released through that exit, rather than tearing new exits. So unless this guy has filled up every spar inch of his SUV with powder, it would just create a massive fire, but short lived, with a few explosions of propane when the gas was released. HOWEVER even that wouldn't have been effective at causing deaths, not that its especially dangerous to anyone even 20 feet away, because of the fireworks. Just like we saw, those things are going to go off first and act as warning rather than cause any damage.


My vote is saying with nutcase with nutcase agency, although I still could see this guy being politically motivated, probably right wing.
 
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Thanks for the detailed break down of this case so far, Detective Wiseone!
 
All those years of studying IEDs and explosive forensics is finally paying off!
 
Yup it's a tea party nutcase who thinks Obama wasn't born in America.

No doubt about it.
 
Wiseone said:
Just looking at the type of explosives they tried to use, and the failed detonation this has the hallmarks of a homegrown terrorist attempt.
Firstly its extremely amateurish, a hodgepodge of different types of explosives: fireworks, black powder, propane tanks, and NO shrapnel around the explosives.
None of these are particularly explosive and probably won't do much damage, in fact the SUV these were packed it would probably do more to contain the explosion than expand it. A propane tank would probably make more of a fire ball than dangerous explosion, the fireworks and black powder would do the same. Especially if the propane or fireworks were ignited first, it would blow the black powder for a split second and reduce its effectiveness.
If the the goal of this was to kill people it would have been built differently, or it means the bomb makers dont know what they are doing.

Additionally, all overseas terrorists that have come to this country have been suicide attackers, this guy ran from the vehicle after he planted it. Also most IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan these days aren't timed bombs, they are built with triggers so they can be set off at any time. I keep with IED attacks and disarmed bombs through the Army and timed explosives are very very uncommon.

Lastly homegrown terrorists tend to be more concerned about their lives than Afghan, Pakistanis, or AQ in general. If this was someone from overseas it would have almost certainly been a suicide bomber. Its also unlikely that someone sent a bomb maker to the US, those people are valuable and most are trained and experienced in converting military explosives into IEDs, not propane tanks and fireworks.

I don't know anything other than open source but in my experience and education this says homegrown terrorist, I could even see this as someone without a terrorist agenda.
Click to expand...

I very much agree with this. Radical Islamic terrorism is rarely this amateurish. This definitely has the marks of attempted domestic terrorism behind it. As far as what the perpetrator's motives are, who knows?
 
FOXNews.com - Pakistani Arrested in Times Square Bomb Plot

"A Pakistani man believed to be the driver of an SUV used as a car bomb in a failed terror attack on Times Square was taken into custody early Tuesday by federal and local police officials while trying to leave the country.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was identified by customs agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport and was stopped before boarding an Emirates airlines flight to Dubai, Attorney General Eric Holder said. Shahzad had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife."


"The SUV was parked near offices of Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy Central. The network recently aired an episode of the animated show "South Park" that the group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume."


Mother f---ers.

We'll see if this turns out to be the guy, but I have a feeling it is.
 
BBC News - Times Square bomb suspect arrested in New York

A Pakistani US citizen with possible ties to foreign organizations with terrorist intent against the US government. It looks like my theory on him not being connected to foreigner organizations directly, is about to go out the window.

Lame. I was sure this guy was either purely homegrown, maybe read some foreign material online or whatever, or just some crazy wacko with an agenda not connected to Islamic terrorism.

I was sure he was the crazy wacko.
 
Wiseone said:
Lame. I was sure this guy was either purely homegrown, maybe read some foreign material online or whatever, or just some crazy wacko with an agenda not connected to Islamic terrorism.

I was sure he was the crazy wacko.
Click to expand...

If the guy had been purely homegrown and a crazy American wacko, the bomb probably would have been built with a little more attention to detail and in good working order.
 
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Looking at the poll, F107Hypersaber and Upsideguy ought to be feeling a bit foolish about now...
 
Wiseone said:
Yes if you shoot a propane tank on its own it will not explode, and yes I'd imagine they were using bigger ones than me but the principle is the same.

In those photos I had lit a small fire and placed the propane tank inside of it, so when I punctured the tank with my rifle the gas would ignite from the fire. If there was no fire, there would be no explosion.
Click to expand...

The propane is most often used as an initator. It goes boom very easily and the explosion detonates the remaining material - usually chemical explosive. Thats when shrapnel is created.
 
Alvin T. Grey said:
The propane is most often used as an initator. It goes boom very easily and the explosion detonates the remaining material - usually chemical explosive. Thats when shrapnel is created.
Click to expand...

Propane tanks aren't designed to break into pieces, plus propane is a light gas. It doesn't have a lot of push, once a hole for the gas is created thats always enough to relieve the pressure, unless its in a paper bag.

And I would guess that a propane wouldnt be enough to set off a fertilizer bomb, and maybe not even the petrol. But its possible I suppose. I dont really know much about fertilizer bomb, they stopped using the ammonium nitrate, I think I spelled that right, in fertilizer a long time ago. And I most study IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, this NYC bomb is pretty creative
 
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So who won?
 
Wiseone said:
Propane tanks aren't designed to break into pieces, plus propane is a light gas. It doesn't have a lot of push, once a hole for the gas is created thats always enough to relieve the pressure, unless its in a paper bag.
Click to expand...
The shrapnel is packed with the bomb. In my experience its usually roofing nails or similar.

And I would guess that a propane wouldnt be enough to set off a fertilizer bomb, and maybe not even the petrol.
Click to expand...
It is. It's also supposed to set of the petrol in the cars tank so that whatever comes out of the explosion is covered in burning fuel.


But its possible I suppose. I dont really know much about fertilizer bomb, they stopped using the ammonium nitrate, I think I spelled that right, in fertilizer a long time ago.
Click to expand...
They don't use those directly. However ammoniun, potassium, and nitrogen are the three active ingrediants in any fertilizer and they are in the chemical mix. You need to cook them out in order to make the explosive. How that is done is akin to making crystal meth from cough medicne. Bloody dangerous, highly toxic.

And I most study IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, this NYC bomb is pretty creative
Click to expand...
It's not creative, its "make do". In Iraq and Afghanistan it's easier to get your hands on military grade explosive, unused 155MM shells, mortar rounds, RPG warheads etc.

To tell you the truth, I'm amazed it didn't contain at least some black powder and unexpended amunition..
 
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