Taleban disown Times Square ‘Idiot Bomber’

The Times | May 8, 2010
Giles Whittell

The alleged would-be Times Square terrorist was disowned by the Pakistani Taleban yesterday as American politicians called for him to be stripped of his US citizenship so he can be tried by a military tribunal.

Faisal Shahzad — nicknamed the “Idiot Bomber” for a series of blunders leading to his arrest — was praised by a spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban but disowned in the same breath. “We don’t even know him,” a spokesman said.

In New York, an Emirates jet was held on the runway at Kennedy airport for the second time in four days yesterday, amid reports that another “no fly” passenger had escaped detection and boarded the aircraft.

As the White House increased pressure on Islamabad to investigate possible links between Mr Shahzad and a range of militant groups based in Pakistan, new details emerged of his movements before the attempted bombing and of the lonely life in a cheap suburban flat that he was apparently attempting to escape.

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