page_title: 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt
section_title: Car bombing attempt
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt / Car bombing attempt
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo showing the positioning of charges in vehicle found in Times Square
context_page_description: On May 1, 2010, a terrorist attack was attempted in Times Square in Manhattan, New York. Two street vendors alerted NYPD after they spotted smoke coming from a vehicle, and a car bomb was discovered. The bomb had been ignited, but failed to explode, and was disarmed before it caused any casualties. Two days later, federal agents arrested Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistan-born resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who had become a U.S. citizen in April 2009. He was arrested after he had boarded Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He admitted attempting the car bombing and said that he had trained at a Pakistani terrorist training camp, according to U.S. officials.
  United States Attorney General Eric Holder said that Shahzad's intent had been "to kill Americans." Shahzad was charged in federal court in Manhattan on May 4 with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and other federal crimes related to explosives. More than a dozen people were arrested by Pakistani officials in connection with the plot. Holder said the Pakistani Taliban directed the attack and may have financed it.
  U.S.
context_section_description: The suspect's vehicle, a dark blue 1993 Nissan Pathfinder sport utility vehicle with dark tinted windows, entered Times Square at approximately 6:28 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday evening, May 1, 2010, as seen on a surveillance video.
  Two minutes later, two street vendors, T-shirt seller Lance Orton, 56, and handbag seller Duane Jackson, 58 noticed smoke drifting from vents near the back seat of the unoccupied vehicle, which was parked with its engine running and its hazard lights on. They also heard firecrackers going off inside.
  Meanwhile, Alioune Niasse, a Senegalese immigrant who sells photographs on the Square, was among those who noticed the vehicle and alerted a mounted policeman. The vehicle had been parked on a tourist-crowded block at the eastern corner of 1 Astor Plaza (intersection of West 45th Street and Broadway), near the entrance to the Minskoff Theatre which was housing the musical The Lion King. The police officer approached the Pathfinder to investigate, and observed the smoke, canisters inside, and the smell of gunpowder. He immediately called for backup, a bomb disposal team, and the Fire Department.
  The police quickly evacuated and barricaded the area stretching from 43rd Street to 49th Street on Seventh Avenue, and 45th Street from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue, of all vehicle and foot traffic, including Broadway-performance attendees. They also evacuated several buildings near the vehicle, including the New York Marriott Marquis hotel. While many Broadway theaters had their opening curtains delayed, all shows gave their performances that night.
  The vehicle was set ablaze, but did not detonate. Upon arrival, the bomb disposal team used a remote-controlled robotic device to break out a window of the vehicle, and explore its contents.
  The team found in the rear of the vehicle:
  two travel alarm clocks with batteries that apparently were fashioned as triggering devices, connected by electrical wires to
  two red full 5-gallon cans of gasoline, sandwiching
  40+ consumer-grade M-88 firecrackers inside a 20-ounce metal container (wrapped in duct tape, with its end removed),
  gunpowder,
  three full 20-gallon propane tanks, and
  a 55-inch (1,400 mm) x 32-inch (810 mm) green metal gun locker that contained:
  a metal pressure cooker pot containing a thicket of wires, that also connected to the alarm clocks;
  250 pounds (110 kg) of urea-based fertilizer in 8 plastic bags; and
  120 M-88s.
  Investigators believed the car bomb was actually made up of four separate, individual explosive components – in effect, four bombs comprising one large bomb. The firecrackers would have started the process by setting off triggering devices, attached to the gasoline. That would have created an explosion that would then have in turn set off the propane and the fertilizer. A cell phone and wristwatch recovered from the vehicle may have been intended as separate timing/triggering devices. The maker of the "bomb" incorrectly surmised that the urea/sugar mixture fertilizer would work like the ammonium nitrate-based fertilizer which was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
  The improvised explosive device's ignition source malfunctioned, however, and failed to set it off as intended. Had it detonated, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the bomb would have cut the car in half, and "would have caused casualties, a significant fireball." Police said the bomb would likely also have sprayed shrapnel, and killed or wounded many people.
caption: Justice Department diagram showing positioning of charges in vehicle
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