The accused bungling Times Square car bomber — whose stern-looking mug shot was released yesterday — told law enforcement officials he was surprised his ragtag contraption of fireworks, gas canisters, propane tanks and fertilizer wired to a pair of children’s alarm clocks failed to detonate. Faisal Shahzad even asked interrogators to explain what went wrong with his homemade device, according to The Associated Press.
The suspect believed the fireworks would trigger a chain reaction rupturing the tanks and creating a fireball, a source told the AP. Experts said his jumbled bomb was poorly built and he bought the wrong kind of fertilizer: It wasn’t explosive.
A Pakistani army general was arrested overseas yesterday in connection with Shahzad’s May 1 plot, the L.A. Times reported. Though the major’s link to him was unclear, Pakistani law enforcement sources told the paper the two had met in Islamabad and were in touch by cell phone. The Pakistan Army Inter-Services, however, denied the connection, saying the major was arrested for insubordination.
Shahzad reportedly told investigators he’d been plotting follow-up attacks on Grand Central Terminal, the Financial District and elsewhere.
