NEW YORK -- A Pakistani man believed to be the driver of a sport utility vehicle used as a car bomb in a failed terror attack on Times Square was taken into custody late Monday by FBI agents and local police detectives while trying to leave the country, U.S. officials said.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was identified by customs agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 11:45 p.m. Monday and was stopped before boarding an Emirates airlines flight to Dubai, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials. Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to officials who spoke to The Associated Press early Tuesday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

Shahzad was being held in New York and couldn't be contacted. He has a Shelton, Connecticut, address; a phone number listed there wasn't in service. Investigators were searching his home.

The U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District in Manhattan will handle the case and said Shahzad would appear in court Tuesday on formal charges, but those charges were not made public.

Holder said the U.S. "will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice," suggesting additional suspects are being sought.

Law enforcement officials say Shahzad bought the SUV, a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder, from a Connecticut man about three weeks ago and paid cash. The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Police said the bomb could have produced "a significant fireball" and sprayed shrapnel with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows. The SUV was parked on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters, including one showing "The Lion King," and full of people out on a Saturday night.

The vehicle identification number had been removed from the Pathfinder's dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine, and investigators used it to find the owner of record. The discovery was paramount to the investigation.

"The discovery of the VIN on the engine block was pivotal in that it led to the identifying the registered owner," said Paul Browne, chief New York Police Department spokesman. "It continues to pay dividends."

Officials say the SUV's registered owner, whose name has not been released, was not considered a suspect in the bomb scare.

Investigators tracked the license plate found on the rear of the SUV to a used auto parts shop in Stratford, Connecticut, where they discovered the plate was connected to a different vehicle.

They also spoke to the owner of an auto sales shop in nearby Bridgeport because a sticker on the Pathfinder indicated the SUV had been sold by his dealership. Owner Tom Manis said there was no match between the identification number the officers showed him and any vehicle he had sold.

As the SUV buyer came into focus, investigators backed off other leads. They had initially wanted to speak with a man apparently in his 40s who was videotaped shedding his shirt near the Pathfinder. Officials said it's possible he was just a bystander.

In Washington on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Saturday's attempted bombing was a terrorist act.

The motive remained unclear. The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility for the bomb in three videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups said. New York officials said police have no evidence to support the claims. It was unclear if the suspect in custody had any relationship to the group.

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 militant group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume.

The date of the botched bombing, May 1, was International Workers Day, a traditional date for political demonstrations, and thousands had rallied for immigration reform that day in New York.

Security also had been tight in the city in advance of a visit to the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a nuclear nonproliferation treaty conference.

The SUV was captured on video crossing an intersection at 6:28 p.m. Saturday. A vendor pointed out the Pathfinder to an officer about two minutes later. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening, was shut down for 10 hours. A bomb squad dismantled the explosive device, and no one was hurt.

The explosive device had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-ounce (454-gram) can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to detonate the gas cans and set the propane afire in a chain reaction, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

A metal rifle cabinet placed in the cargo area was packed with fertilizer, but NYPD bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate grade fertilizer used in previous terrorist bombings.

The amount of fertilizer was unknown. Police estimated the cabinet weighed 200 to 250 pounds (90 to 133 kilograms) when they pulled it from the vehicle.

President Barack Obama telephoned handbag vendor Duane Jackson on Monday to commend him for alerting authorities to the smoking SUV. The White House said Obama thanked Jackson, of Buchanan, New York, for his vigilance and for acting quickly to prevent serious trouble.

www.foxnews.com

Way to go NYPD and FBI. I hope they string him up by his balls.

what a surprise..

They will find he is is affiliated with TTP or AQ.

They just arrested 8 people inh Pakistan in connection to this case.

The only thing that didn't surprise me was his name wasn't mohommad.

an update:


Faisal Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a retired official in Pakistan's air force, was charged Tuesday with trying to blow up a crude gasoline and propane device inside a parked SUV amid tourists and Broadway theatergoers. He was in custody after being hauled off a Dubai-bound plane he boarded Monday night at John F. Kennedy International Airport despite being under surveillance and placed on the federal no-fly list.

Passengers disembarking from the flight many hours later described a calm scene as he was removed from the plane. They said he didn't put up a struggle.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Shahzad had been providing valuable information to investigators as they sought to determine the scope of the plot to blow up the SUV last Saturday night in the heart of Times Square near bustling restaurants and a theater showing "The Lion King."

"Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country," Holder said.

I saw a newsclip of the suv showing where the propane and other substances were placed. The bomb had no chance because the builder did not understand the basics of bomb building. Next time we may not be as lucky. He completed his mission. The bomb, which could have killed and maimed many, was a dud.

... and he's already been 'Mirandized' ... sleep well, America - your government stands ready to ... ummm ... to ... ummm ... do 'something' ... meanwhile, if you'll just sign here and give up those few pesky 'rights' things you're always saying that 'constitution' thing 'grants' you ... well, you'd make us very happy ... nothing to see here folks - keep moving ...

gotta send an arab to do a pakistani's job. : D

Holder said they were tracking him the WHOLE time! Then how did he manage to almost leave the country? That's our government! Come on 2012!!

pakistan's at it again! first Langley in 1993, than Seattle in 2006, and now NYC. whats wrong with those guys?

Holder is a crook and dunderhead.

Islam, gotta love it.

an update:

U.S. and Pakistani investigators are giving increased credence to links between Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and the Pakistan Taliban, with one senior Pakistani official saying Shahzad received instruction from the Islamist group's suicide-bomb trainer.

If the links are verified, it would mark a stark shift in how the Pakistan Taliban—an affiliate of the Taliban in Afghanistan—and related jihadist groups in Pakistan pursue their goals. Until now, they have focused on attacks within Pakistan and in India, not the U.S.

Click here for more on the story from our LiveShots blog.

For the past several months, Pakistan's military has waged a battle against the Pakistan Taliban and a related group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. The Pakistan Taliban's leadership has been heavily targeted by missile strikes from Central Intelligence Agency pilotless drones.

Pakistani investigators also are probing Shahzad's possible connections with Jaish-e-Muhammad, an outlawed Islamist militant group, after the arrest Tuesday of Tohaid Ahmed and Mohammed Rehan in Karachi. A senior Pakistani government official said the two men were believed to have links to Jaish. Ahmed had been in email contact with Shahzad; Rehan took Shahzad to South Waziristan, the official said.

There, Shahzad received training in explosives in a camp run by Qari Hussain, the official said. Hussain is a senior commander with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistan Taliban's formal name, and trains suicide bombers, the official said. Mr. Hussain is also a cousin of Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban's chief. The 30-year-old Shahzad has admitted to investigators that he received training from militants in Waziristan, U.S. officials said.

After several trips to Pakistan, Shahzad came back to the U.S. with significant amounts of declared cash, law enforcement officials said. "That's not that unusual, for immigrants to move with lots of cash," he said. "There just wasn't anything in his [immigration file] that raised any red flags."

Hussain claimed responsibility for the attempted attack in a weekend audio message. His message followed a video of Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban leader, in which he warned of a wave of attacks on the U.S. "Our fighters are already in the United States," Mehsud said.

The key point here is the "wave of attacks ... Our fighters are already in the United States." And most of the discussion on the Mingle political threads is about America's open borders.