Faisal Shahzad was pulled off an airliner headed for Dubai early Tuesday morning. He is suspected, and has admitted, of driving an SUV onto a crowded Times Square street in New York City and setting it on fire. The car was loaded with cans of gasoline, propane tanks and sacks of fertilizer.
Shahzad — or whoever the perpetrator was — thought he had prepared a car bomb that would kill people and do damage.
Law enforcement agencies put platoons of skilled investigators to work with lightning speed. Evidence led them to Shadzad in 53 hours. The accomplishment is the more impressive because the suspect was not known to local law enforcement officers or to the national security agencies.
One news report said Shahzad said he acted alone, but he has yet to be charged and can’t be interviewed so that semi-confession had not been confirmed Tuesday.
What is known is that whoever put the “bomb” together didn’t know much. The fertilizer wasn’t the type that ex-plodes. The M-80 firecrackers probably would not have detonated the gasoline. The propane tanks would not have exploded without reaching a higher temperature than the fire set could have created.
Bomb experts agreed that if the inflammables in the car had all caught fire together the result would have been a devastating fireball. People on a crowded Time Square would have been killed or badly burned. Windows would have been broken by the blast. But no building would have been destroyed, even if the bomber’s most grisly expectations had been met. None of that horror happened because the bomber didn’t know his business.
First indications are that Shahzad — assuming he is the guy — is another lone terrorist more evil than expert.
Our country therefore has two more blessings to count: (1) the Times Square bomber was not a well-trained assailant; (2) our national security forces are very well trained at their jobs.
Another bullet has been dodged.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
