‘White male’ sought in NY car bomb incident

by Sebastian Smith

NEW YORK (AFP) - New York police on Monday hunted for a middle-aged white man caught on tape near a car bomb in Times Square that sparked a new terrorist alert as authorities discounted an Al-Qaeda link.

A New York traffic cop mans his post in a quiet Times Square near where a crude car bomb was discovered. New York police are hunting for a middle-aged white man caught on tape near a car bomb in Times Square that sparked a new terrorist alert as authorities discounted an Al-Qaeda link.

The man in his 40s was caught on a security camera shedding a shirt in warm weather near the bomb car Saturday just before the alert was raised and police cleared thousands of tourists from the packed theater district, officials said.

President Barack Obama vowed to track down the would-be attackers and investigators said there were several strong leads to the person who abandoned the Nissan Pathfinder with a large, spluttering homemade bomb inside.

Police studied footage from 82 security cameras around Times Square, video taken by a tourist, and evidence from the sport utility vehicle, which was packed with fireworks, propane tanks, gasoline, fertilizer and timers.

Video showed the man whom New York Mayor Michael Bloombergcalled a "person of interest" and city police chief Raymond Kelly said was acting in a "furtive" manner as he hurried away from the scene.

"We simply want to talk to him," Kelly told CNN, noting that police would release later Monday video provided by a tourist showing a person running north on Broadway.

"These are not suspects. These are people we would like to speak to," he insisted.

While New York has been on a terrorist alert ever since the September 11, 2001 attacks, authorities have ruled out a major Islamist militant link after Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed it was behind the botched bombing attempt.

Both Bloomberg and Kelly dismissed the Taliban's claim of responsibility.

"There's a high probability we will find out who did this," Bloomberg told ABC News. "There's a lot of evidence."

On a visit Sunday to the oil spill on Louisiana's coast, Obama said US security services had taken "every step necessary" in the hunt.

It remained unclear why the device failed to detonate after partly catching fire in the back of the Nissan.

The fertilizer in the car was concealed in a metal gun box. Fertilizer can be used to make explosives similar to those used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing of April 1995 that killed 168 people.

Had the bomb exploded in the teeming entertainment district, Kelly said it would have created a "significant fireball."

The engine was still running and the emergency lights were blinking when the smoking car attracted a nearby street vendor.

The vendor, a Vietnam War veteran, told police who quickly brought in the bomb squad.

The first officer on the scene, Wayne Rhatigan, run around the vehicle, saw the inside was smoking and smelled gunpowder.

"I thought it might blow any second," he told the New York Daily News.

Kelly said the license plate on the utility vehicle belonged to a vehicle traced back to a Connecticut junkyard.

Officials said the attempted bombing was terrorism, but were cautious about suggesting who might have been behind the attack, raising speculation that domestic militants were responsible.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the FBI, the New York police and the government's Terrorism Task Force were probing a "potential terrorist attack."

There was no evidence of a broader plot, but law enforcement authorities had been alerted to "stay on their toes," she said.

The scare raised tensions across the United States, where security forces have been on edge since a young Nigerian allegedly attempted to set off a bomb on a US airliner as it came in to land in Detroit, Michigan.

New York City police are on constant alert after a string of plots since 9/11.

In February, Afghan migrant and self-confessed Al-Qaeda agent Najibullah Zazi, 25, pleaded guilty to a plot to set off bombs in New York's subway system. He could be sentenced to life in prison.