ISLAMABAD , May 5: Like some of Al Qaeda’s most notorious members, the Pakistani-American charged in connection with the botched bomb in New York’s Times Square comes from a respectable background that provides no hints of radicalism.

Faisal Shahzad, a naturalised American, has admitted to trying to detonate the bomb in a sports utility vehicle and receiving explosives-making training in a known Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan, US prosecutors say.
On the surface, he bears no resemblance to the many impoverished Pakistani men who have been lured to the Taliban by promises of holy war and martyrdom. Shahzad, a former financial analyst who worked in the US state of Connecticut, is the son of a retired vice air marshal, affording him a special status in Pakistan, where the military is the most powerful and influential institution. He is married with two children, sources said, with his wife and children living somewhere in Pakistan. He had a job in Karachi some years ago and still carries a residency card from the metropolis.     —Reuters

Kamran Haider
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‘Met Taliban bomb expert’
Islamabad, May 5: Pakistani investigators believe Faisal Shahzad learned about explosives from a senior Taliban expert at a training camp in Pakistan.
Mohammed Rehan, one of eight people arrested in Pakistan late Tuesday, is accused of introducing Shahzad to militants who gave him lessons in handling explosives. According to security sources Rehan was arrested in the Pakistani southern port city of Karachi. He is suspected of taking Shahzad to the northern city of Peshawar and then to North Waziristan, which is now a Taliban stronghold.
By arrangement with AKI