National Mission for Manuscripts to publish 'Soundarya Lahari'

http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=179176

Bangalore May 6: National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) has created a database of over three million manuscripts scattered all over the country, Director NMM, Prof Dipti S Tripathi said today.

Talking to newspersons here after inaugurating a workshop on 'Importance of Kadatas and Its Conservation' organised jointly by Karnataka State Archives and NMM here today, Prof Tripathi said creating a database of over 3 million manuscripts was an herculean task.

She said that while NMM was continuing its job on creating database on ancient manuscripts, paintings and books which not only reflects country's history, heritage and culture, was not indulged in dissemination of knowledge contained and concealed in the database.

She said as a first step NMM had planned to publish the Sanskrit manuscript 'Soundarya Lahari' originally scripted by Adi Shankara, praising the almighty for having created the universe and its creatures. The publication of Soundarya Lahari containing 100 'slokas' would be done in three languages including English, Hindi and Gujarati. The original script on 'Soundarya Lahari', which was in Sanskrit was handed over to NMM from a Gujarati citizen and hence it was also being published in the local language, she said.

The NMM had chosen to publish the facsimile version of'Bhagawat Purana' dated to Moghul period which was scripted in Persian language, she said.

TERROR IN NY: A JEM LINK?

B.RAMAN

Najibullah Zazi , a 25-year-old Afghan citizen with permanent resident status in the US, was arrested by the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September 2009 on a charge of belonging to an Al Qaeda motivated and trained cell, which was allegedly planning suicide bombings in the New York City subway system. He pleaded guilty along with one of two other co-conspirators. The third co-conspirator did not plead guilty. The case is reserved for judgement in June.

2.According to the prosecution, the three had planned to attack the subway system at the instance of Saleh al-Somali, Al-Qaeda's head of external operations, and Rashid Rauf, who was described by the prosecution as an Al-Qaeda operative. Rashid Rauf, who was reportedly killed in a US Drone (pilotless plane) strike in North Waziristan in November,2008, belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) of Pakistan and was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the JEM.

3. Zarein Ahmedzay, a 25-year-old former New York taxi driver, one of the three co-conspirators, who pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, claimed the three had bought ingredients to make explosives similar to those used in the July 7 2005 bombings in London which killed 52 people on three tube trains and a bus. Ahmedzay told the court that he travelled to Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi and Adis Medunjanin in the summer of 2008. They went to a training camp in North Waziristan and volunteered to join the Taliban and fight the US forces in Afghanistan, but were told they would be "more useful if we returned to New York City... to conductoperations."Asked by the judge what kind of operations, he said: "Suicide-bombing operations.” Zazi told the court:"During the training, al Qaeda leaders asked us to return to the United States and conduct a martyrdom operation. We agreed to this plan." It was reported on April 13,2010, that a fourth suspect in the case----not yet named as a co-conspirator---had been arrested in Pakistan and that the US authorities were trying to get him to the US for interrogation.

4.Rashid Rauf, who motivated them, was from a Mirpuri family of Birmingham. The Mirpuris are the Punjabi-speaking residents of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). He disappeared from the UK in 2002 after the British Police suspected him in connection with the murder of one of his relatives in Birmingham. On August 9, 2006, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have picked him up from a house inBhawalpur, southern Punjab, which he had bought after coming to Pakistan in 2002. The Pakistani authorities claimed that he was in close touch with Al Qaeda and that it was his arrest that gave them an inkling regarding the imminence of the plot of a group of jihadi extremists based in the UK to blow up a number of US-bound planes. The discovery of the conspiracy and the arrest of many UK-based suspects of Pakistani origin were then announced by the British Police.

5.Despite his alleged involvement in the August 2006 plot to blow up a number of US-bound planes with liquid explosives, the Pakistani authorities avoided handing him over to the British Police for interrogation. The Government of Pakistan told a court on October 30, 2006, that Rashid Rauf had been detained under the Security of Pakistan Act. A Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism Judge, Justice Safdar Hussain Malik, passed orders on November 21, 2006, approving his judicial custody in the Adiala jail. This ruled out his early transfer to the British Police for interrogation. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances on December, 16,2007, while being taken back to jail from the court. Many alleged that the ISI had allowed him to escape to avoid pressure from the British Police to hand him over for interrogation.

6. Quoting an unnamed senior Pakistani security official, an Islamabad datelined report of the Agence France Press (AFP) stated as follows on November 22, 2008: "The alleged mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot was killed in a US missile attack in northwest Pakistan early Saturday (November 15, 2008) .The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative in the US missile strike in North Waziristan early Saturday," a senior security official told AFP. The Al-Qaeda operative killed in the strike was identified as Abu Zubair al-Misri, the official added. He and the Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative were killed along with at least two other militants in a US drone attack on the house of a local tribesman in the village of Alikhel, part of a district known as a stronghold for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, officials said. The missile strike came days after another US drone attack which killed six rebels, including an Arab Al-Qaeda operative. That attack prompted Taliban militants based in the rugged tribal territory bordering Afghanistan to warn of reprisal attacks across Pakistan if there were more strikes by the US. "

7.According to the “Daily Telegraph”,Rauf had been suspected of involvement in almost every significant terrorist plot in Britain since his escape to Pakistan in 2002, including the explosions of July 7, 2005 in London, the failed attacks of July 21, 2005 in London and the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic.He was also behind an alleged plan to attack shopping centres in Manchester during Easter 2008.

8.Maulana Masood Azhar used to be a leader of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a founding member of Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front For Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed in 1998. Its then Amir, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, was a signatory of bin Laden’s first fatwa calling for attacks against the US. Azhar had fought as a member of bin Laden’s group in Somalia in the early 1990s. In 1994, he entered India and was arrested by the Police and kept in custody in Jammu & Kashmir. He was one of those released by the Government of India in December,1999, to secure the release of the passengers of a plane of the Indian Airlines hijacked by the HUM to Kandahar to demand the release of Azhar and others. After his return to Pakistan from Kandahar, Azhar developed differences with Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, left the HUM and formed his own organization in January 2000 called the JEM. bin Laden failed in his efforts to patch up the differences between the two. He then switched his support from the HUM to the JEM.

9. The JEM was very active in J&K and was suspected of involvement in the attempted attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13,2001. Unlike the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which never indulges in an act of terrorism in Pakistani territory and against Pakistani targets, the JEM has been involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. It was suspected of involvement, along with Al Qaeda, in the two unsuccessful attempts to kill Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003.It supported the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in its operations against the Pakistan Army in the Swat Valley and then in South Waziristan. It is now believed to have its training camps in NorthWaziristan along with those of Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade.

10. Since Rashid Rauf joined it in 2002, the JEM has been training members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. The Zazi’s case was the first indication that it may be training jihadi volunteers from the US too. As part of the investigation into the attempted incendiary attack in Times Square of New York by Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, on May 1,2010, four suspected members of the JEM in Pakistan are reported to have been detained by the Pakistani authorities. Among those detained is one Muhammed Rehan, a suspected associate ofShahzad who allegedly has links to the JEM. According to a senior Pakistani official, Rehan made possible a meeting between Shahzad and at least one senior Taliban official. He alleged that Rehan drove Shahzad on July 7, 2009, to Peshawar. They also went to the Waziristanregion, where they met with one or more senior Taliban leaders.

11. The suspected involvement of the JEM in the training of Faisal, if proved correct, would indicate, in the wake of its involvement in the motivation and training of the Zazi cell, a possible link between the members of the Zazi cell and Faisal. It would also indicate the possibility that like Zazi, Faisal was not acting alone. The JEM is becoming as worrisome as the LET as a surrogate of Al Qaeda using angry elements in the Pakistani diaspora for acts of terrorism not only in the UK as it had done in the past, but also in the US now. ( 7-5-10)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

Terms Of Nuclear Engagement

Anil Kakodkar, May 8, 2010, 12.00am IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Home/Opinion/Edit-Page/Terms-Of-Nuclear-Engagement/articleshow/5903760.cms

One of the objectives of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been to benefit the world with nuclear energy. In countries allied to superpowers or their trustworthy followers, the nuclear generation capacity did grow to fill in the available space. As a result, the share of nuclear power worldwide rose to around 17 per cent rather quickly.

Proliferation concerns, however, persisted in spite of the NPT. This led to moves by the US towards abandoning the closed nuclear fuel cycle since it involved separation of weapon usable fissile materials. This meant an order of magnitude reduction in the energy potential from nuclear resources. Countries like France, Russia and Japan, however, continued to pursue the policy of closed nuclear fuel cycle on considerations of their long-term energy security.

NPT countries not belonging to either of the two blocs could not benefit from nuclear energy to any significant extent in spite of being members of the treaty. The IAEA's programme on small and medium nuclear power reactors did not produce any tangible result in spite of its existence for decades. On the other hand, comprehensive and self-reliant development of nuclear power technology in India, based on the closed nuclear fuel cycle, has made the country well poised for large-scale development of nuclear power on its own. Indian nuclear technological capability, in addition to other factors, has contributed to the change in the world's attitude towards India in spite of it not being a part of the NPT.

Climate change concerns necessitate a large-scale deployment of nuclear power as an important means of meeting global energy needs in near carbon emission-free mode. The old mindset of shunning the closed nuclear fuel recycle is thus slowly transforming to a realisation of the importance of nuclear recycle. Since recycle technologies involve large amounts of separated weapon usable fissile materials, there are added proliferation and now even security concerns. The situation is similar to the one that existed around the time the NPT was created. New modalities that allow expanded use of nuclear energy and also address security and proliferation concerns are thus becoming necessary.

The strong desire for additional controls on enrichment and reprocessing over and above the NPT commitments is likely to lead to new frameworks that would further divide the world. Signs are already visible in discussion on issues like enrichment and reprocessing transfers, multinational management of nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear security.

For us this is both a challenge and an opportunity. We would be a credible player in reprocessing and enrichment certainly for ourselves but, if the situation so warrants, for other countries as well. In the area of reactors including advanced systems like fast reactors and thorium reactors, we have specific technological advantage. We are now getting integrated with international commerce in nuclear technology. That India is a state with nuclear weapons is now a recognised fact. We should therefore logically be a part in the emerging nuclear framework with proper recognition.

We are not a part of the NPT that would continue to be an integral part of any new emerging order. NPT and related issues would remain a major irritant in our engagement with the international community on various nuclear and related matters. We have to remain vigilant in this regard. The political dimensions of the problem of India's further integration in the world nuclear order and the question of equitable access to nuclear energy in all countries are much more difficult to resolve and much would depend on the statesmanship of world leaders. The process is inevitably dependent on the evolving global/regional dynamics, is long drawn and inherently unpredictable. We should simply carry on with our nuclear development in accordance with our predetermined programme and following our time tested policies. The world would need India as much as we need the world; hopefully a situation would emerge when we get further integrated in the emerging nuclear order in a manner consistent with our policies.

India can perhaps do a few things that help. In addition to pursuing the rapid deployment of three-stage nuclear development within the country, we should continue to build strong cooperative links with key countries in advanced nuclear technology areas. This mutually beneficial exercise should create an interdependence that would position us better and protect our interest in the emerging order. Our 220 MWe pressurised heavy water reactor systems are the smallest and yet most competitive nuclear power plants in the world. We should aggressively market Indian systems abroad and create a constituency in our favour.

Finally, we could demonstrate to the world our potential to contribute to a safe and secure global nuclear power development. This can be very effectively done through the low enriched uranium-thorium fuelled advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR-LEU) that has been developed by us and is now ready for deployment. AHWR-LEU is a simple reactor that enables a very high level of safety and is immune to malevolent acts even of an insider. Its fuel cycle is proliferation-resistant. The reactor system can be deployed without any significant safety, security and proliferation risk. Without recourse to such technological solutions, a legal framework no matter how elaborate would simply not be successful, given the complexity of this problem and the ground realities. Our synergistic pursuits on both political and technological fronts can maximise our advantage.

( The writer is former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.)

Beyond Times Square: Pakistani Terrorism Targets U.S.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100506/wl_time/08599198739500/print

By BOBBY GHOSH Bobby Ghosh 1 hr 8 mins ago

Not long ago, a bomb attack on New York City's Times Square would have had intelligence officials and terrorism experts checking off the usual suspects among the sources of terrorist plots against the U.S. - Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq. But these days, says a top counterterrorism official, "when I hear of a terrorist plot, I can count back from 10, and before I get to zero, someone will bring up the Pword."

That's P for Pakistan.

Over the past couple of years, more plots against U.S. targets have emanated from or had a strong connection to Pakistan than any other country. Says the counterterrorism official, who was briefed on the hunt for the Times Square bomber but is not authorized to speak with the media: "It was totally predictable that the smoking Pathfinder would lead to someone with Pakistan in his past." (See the making of a Mumbai terrorist.)

Nor would it come as a surprise if it were revealed that Faisal Shahzad, who has claimed to investigators that he was working alone, was in fact linked to an ever lengthening list of extremist groups operating in Pakistan's northern wilds. These groups, whose attacks had long been confined to the Indian subcontinent, are now emerging as a deadly threat to the U.S. and its allies. As the core of al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, wilts under the constant pounding from the CIA's Predator drone campaign, Pakistani groups are mounting operations deep into the West.

Such groups as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) have not yet notched major successes against U.S. targets to match Hizballah's bombings in 1980s Lebanon or al-Qaeda's destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. But they have lately mounted operations of great audacity and sophistication. LeT has been operating in Europe for at least a decade, initially raising funds from the large Pakistani diaspora in countries like Britain and France and later recruiting volunteers for the jihad against Western forces. At least one of the plotters of the 2005 London subway bombings was an LeT trainee, and British investigators believe the group has been connected to other plots in the U.K. (See Mohammad Amir Ajmal Qasab's jihadist journey into India.)

The TTP, which claimed credit for Shahzad's failed bombing, was behind the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA agents inAfghanistan late last year. And in 2008, in the most spectacular attack by a Pakistani-based group on Western targets, LeT bombed and shot up a railway station, a hospital, two five-star hotels and a Jewish center in Mumbai, killing more than 160 people, including six Americans. Afterward, Indian authorities scanning a computer belonging to one of the Mumbai plotters found a list of 320 targets worldwide; only 20 were Indian. (See who made the 2010 TIME 100.)

Now, security officials fear, Pakistani jihadis are spreading their operations across the Atlantic, recruiting U.S. citizens to their cause just as Britons were recruited a decade ago. If that assessment proves accurate, the Times Square bomb plot could be the first of more to come.

An Evolving Threat
What are the wellsprings of Pakistani radicalism? In the 1980s, many fervently Islamic groups were set up in Pakistan to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, however, these groups and their spin-offs did not lay down their arms but instead turned their attention to Pakistan's old enemy, India. Encouraged by Pakistani civilian, military and intelligence authorities, LeT,Jaish-e-Mohammed and others refashioned themselves as freedom fighters in the cause of Kashmir, the Himalayan territory claimed by both India and Pakistan. Pakistani officials regarded the jihadis as a proxy in their conflict with India, and Islamabad provided groups like LeT with land, funding and even military training, though it was understood that they could not attack targets in Pakistan or get involved in any operations against the U.S., Pakistan's ally. Though there was some low-key cooperation between the Pakistani groups and al-Qaeda, it didn't merit much attention from Washington. (Comment on this story.)

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, however, the Bush Administration began to look more closely into bin Laden's alliances. Washington pressured the Pakistani government of General Pervez Musharraf to crack down on LeT, Jaish and others, which by then were on the State Department's list of proscribed terrorist organizations. But the government in Islamabad allowed the groups to continue operations - in December 2001, LeT attacked the Indian Parliament in an audacious move that nearly brought the two countries to war - with only cosmetic changes to their names. LeT, for instance, merged with its charitable foundation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawah.

Gradually, the Pakistani groups began to broaden their targets beyond the Indian enemy. LeT propaganda, for instance, began to focus on links, real and imagined, between India, Israel and the U.S. By the mid-2000s, the group's leader, a former Islamic-studies professor named Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, began to call for a jihad against the West using language similar to those of the fatwas issued by bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders. LeT fighters began to venture out of their comfort zone, joining the fighting in Iraq.

At the same time, a new group of radicals, the TTP, had begun to emerge along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. While LeT, Jaish and other older groups were dominated by Pakistan's majority Punjabi ethnic group, the TTP was overwhelmingly Pashtun, the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan. And the TTP never had any qualms about challenging the Pakistani state as well as NATO troops in Afghanistan. In 2007 its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, ordered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and attacks on military targets; he also unleashed a wave of suicide bombings in Pakistani cities. While Pakistani authorities have continued to take a somewhat tolerant view of the Punjabi groups, their attitude toward the TTP is another matter. The army began to crack down on the group in 2008, and in the summer of 2009, a CIA drone took out Baitullah Mehsud. His successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was thought to have been killed in another drone strike in January, but he re-emerged last week to claim responsibility for the Times Square attack.

Militants in Our Midst
How plausible is that? U.S. officials were initially dismissive of the TTP's claims but began to reconsider once it emerged that Shahzadhad been trained in bombmaking at a camp in Waziristan, which is Mehsud's stronghold. There is no doubt that the TTP and other Pakistani groups are now recruiting among Americans. Last October, the FBI arrested a Pakistani American, David Coleman Headley, and a Pakistani Canadian associate, for plotting to attack the Copenhagen offices of a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. More shockingly, the FBI said that Headley had been involved in the Mumbai attacks too (he had scoped out the hotels and the Jewish center for LeT) and was planning to bomb the U.S., British and Indian embassies in Dhaka, Bangladesh, before local authorities discovered the plot. In March, Headley pleaded guilty to all charges; he is now waiting to be sentenced.

The Headley revelations alarmed the Obama Administration's security team. In January, Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's top counterterrorism official, said in a speech to the Cato Institute in Washington that "very few things worry me as much as the strength and ambition of LeT." The next month, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that LeT was "becoming more of a direct threat ... placing Western targets in Europe in its sights."

The TTP is certainly doing so. In 2008, it plotted to bomb the public-transport network in Barcelona, though the operation was busted before it got much beyond the planning phase. If Shahzad was indeed acting on Mehsud's instructions, then the TTP has come closer to successfully executing a large-scale operation on American soil than any group has since Sept. 11, 2001.

Exporting Jihad
It's fair to say that many analysts remain skeptical of the ability of a group like the TTP to operate outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mehsud lacks the kinds of networks cultivated by the Punjabi groups among Pakistanis living in the West. The TTP's fighters also tend to be poor, unsophisticated peasants from the mountains, ill equipped for foreign assignments. Besides, Mehsud and his fighters now find themselves under attack from the air (the CIA drones) as well as on the ground (the Pakistani military) and may not have the freedom to think big. They're much more likely to seek U.S. targets close at hand: in April, the TTP attacked the U.S. consulate in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

But the TTP is working on ways to export terrorism. The group's training camps in Waziristan are a magnet for Western jihadis, including U.S. citizens. Once trained, some return home and become executors of the TTP's global ambitions. It's likely that the camps attended by both Najibullah Zazi, who confessed to planning attacks on the New York subway system last year, and Shahzad, the alleged Times Square bomber, were run by the TTP. Others will no doubt follow in their footsteps. Ashley Tellis, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says there's no reason to doubt Mehsud's determination to mount attacks in the U.S. "His group has taken very big hits from the drone campaign," he says. "He's looking for payback. We have to watch the TTP very carefully."

LeT has the same intent but much greater capabilities. It has larger international networks and access to more sophisticated urban and educated recruits - people like Headley, who can move freely in American society. Its foreign operations tend to be better planned, often in collaboration with other groups, like al-Qaeda and Jaish.

Perhaps LeT's greatest strength is the patronage it continues to receive from the Pakistani military and intelligence services. And it enjoys genuine popularity in large parts of the country, where it offers social services that the government cannot provide. After the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, LeT volunteers were often the first to arrive on the scene and provide valuable assistance. Like Hizballah in Lebanon, LeT and other Punjabi jihadist groups wield a combination of military and political power that makes them practically untouchable.
How can the Pakistani groups be combatted? Bruce Riedel, a counterterrorism expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says the Administration's best bet is to launch a "global takedown" of Pakistani jihadi cells outside Pakistan, especially in Britain, the U.S. and the Middle East. "These external bases are the most threatening to us, much more than their operations in Pakistan," he says. As British authorities - who have had more experience with this challenge than those in the U.S. - know very well, such a takedown involves long, hard work by a host of law-enforcement agencies. And while the good guys are increasing their capabilities and understanding of the threats facing them, so are the bad guys. The Times Square bomb plot didn't go as planned. But as Riedel says, "We can't rely on them to be bad bombmakers forever."

Uncomfortable Truths and the Times Square Attack

May 6, 2010 | 0856 GMT

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

By Ben West and Scott Stewart

Faisal Shahzad, the first suspect arrested for involvement in the failed May 1 Times Square bombing attempt, was detained just before midnight on May 3 as he was attempting to depart on a flight from Kennedy International Airport in New York. Authorities removed Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, from an Emirates Airlines flight destined for Dubai. On May 4, Shahzad appeared at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan for his arraignment.

Authorities say that Shahzad is cooperating and that he insists he acted alone. However, this is contradicted by reports that the attack could have international links. On Feb. 3, Shahzad returned from a trip to Pakistan, where, according to the criminal complaint, he said he received militant training in Waziristan, a key hub of the main Pakistani Taliban rebel coalition, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Authorities are reportedly seeking three other individuals in the United States in connection with the May 1 Times Square bombing attempt.

Investigative efforts at this point are focusing on identifying others possibly connected to the plot and determining whether they directed Shahzad in the bombing attempt or merely enabled him. From all indications, authorities are quickly collecting information on additional suspects from their homes and telephone-call records, and this is leading to more investigations and more suspects. While the May 1 attempt was unsuccessful, it came much closer to killing civilians in New York than other recent attempts, such as the Najibullah Zazi case in September 2009 and the Newburgh plotin May 2009. Understanding how Shahzad and his possible associates almost pulled it off is key to preventing future threats.

Shahzad’s Mistakes

U.S. Department of Justice via Getty Images

(click here to enlarge image)

While the device left in the Nissan Pathfinder parked on 45th Street, just off Times Square, ultimately failed to cause any damage, the materials present could have caused a substantial explosion had they been prepared and assembled properly. The bomb’s components were common, everyday products that would not raise undue suspicion when purchased — especially if they were bought separately. They included the following:

• Some 113 kilograms (250 pounds) of urea-based fertilizer. A diagram released by the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that the fertilizer was found in a metal gun locker in the back of the Pathfinder. The mere presence of urea-based fertilizer does not necessarily indicate that the materials in the gun locker composed a viable improvised explosive mixture, but urea-based fertilizer can be mixed with nitric acid to create urea nitrate, the main explosive charge used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (It is not known if the fertilizer in the Pathfinder had been used to create urea nitrate.) Urea nitrate is a popular improvised mixture that can be detonated by a blasting cap and does not require a high-explosive booster charge like ammonium nitrate does; 250 pounds of urea nitrate would be enough to destroy the Pathfinder completely and create a substantial blast effect. If detonated near a large crowd of people, such an explosion could produce serious carnage.
• Two 19-liter (5-gallon) containers of gasoline. If ignited, this fuel would have added an impressive fireball to the explosion but, in practical terms, would not have added much to the explosive effect of the device. Most of the damage would have been done by the urea nitrate. Reports indicate that consumer-grade fireworks (M-88 firecrackers) had been placed between the two containers of gasoline and were detonated, but they do not appear to have ruptured the containers and did not ignite the gasoline inside them. It appears that the firecrackers were intended to be the initiator for the device and were apparently the source of a small fire in the carpet upholstery of the Pathfinder. This created smoke that alerted a street vendor that something was wrong. The firecrackers likely would not have had sufficient detonation velocity to initiate urea nitrate.
• Three 75-liter (20-gallon) propane tanks. Police have reported that the tank valves were left unopened, which has led others to conclude that this was yet another mistake on the part of Shahzad. Certainly, opening the tanks’ valves, filling the vehicle with propane gas and then igniting a spark would have been one way to cause a large explosion. Another way would have been to use explosives (such as the adjacent fertilizer mixture or gasoline) to rupture the tanks, which would have created a large amount of force and fire since the propane inside the tanks was under considerable pressure. Shahzad may have actually been attempting to blast open the propane tanks, which would explain why the valves were closed. Propane tanks are commonly used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in many parts of the world. Even without detonating, the propane tanks would have become very large and dangerous projectiles if the fertilizer had detonated.

That none of these three forms of explosive and incendiary materials detonated indicates that the bombmaker was likely a novice and had problems with the design of his firing chain. While a detailed schematic of the firing chain has not been released, the bombmaker did not seem to have a sophisticated understanding of explosive materials and the techniques required to properly detonate them. This person may have had some rudimentary training in explosives but was clearly not a trained bombmaker. It is one thing to attend a class at a militant camp where you are taught how to use military explosives and quite another to create a viable IED from scratch in hostile territory.

However, the fact that Shahzad was apparently able to collect all of the materials, construct an IED (even a poorly designed one) and maneuver it to the intended target without being detected exhibits considerable progress along the attack cycle. Had the bombmaker properly constructed a viable device with these components and if the materials had detonated, the explosion and resulting fire likely would have caused a significant number of casualties given the high density and proximity of people in the area.

It appears that Shahzad made a classic “Kramer jihadist” mistake: trying to make his attack overly spectacular and dramatic. This mistake was criticized by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Nasir al-Wahayshi last year when he called for grassroots operatives to conduct simple attacks instead of complex ones that are more prone to failure. In the end, Shahzad (who was probably making his first attempt to build an IED by himself) tried to pull off an attack so elaborate that it failed to do any damage at all.

As STRATFOR has discussed for many years now, the devolution of the jihadist threat from one based primarily on al Qaeda the group to one emanating from a wider jihadist movement means that we will see jihadist attacks being carried out more frequently by grassroots or lone wolf actors. These actors will possess a lesser degree of terrorist tradecraft than the professional terrorists associated with the core al Qaeda group, or even regional jihadist franchises like the TTP. This lack of tradecraft means that these operatives are more likely to make mistakes and attempt attacks against relatively soft targets, both characteristics seen in the failed May 1 attack.

Jihadist Attack Models

Under heavy pressure since the 9/11 attacks, jihadist planners wanting to strike the U.S. mainland face many challenges. For one thing, it is difficult for them to find operatives capable of traveling to and from the United States. This means that, in many cases, instead of using the best and brightest operatives that jihadist groups have, they are forced to send whoever can get into the country. In September 2009, U.S. authorities arrested Najibullah Zazi, a U.S. citizen who received training at an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan in 2008 before returning to the United States to begin an operation that would involve detonating explosive devices on New York City subways.

Zazi’s journey likely raised red flags with authorities, who subsequently learned through communication intercepts of his intent to construct explosive devices. Zazi had no explosives training or experience other than what he had picked during his brief stint at the training camp in Pakistan, and he attempted to construct the devices only with the notes he had taken during the training. Zazi had difficulty producing viable acetone peroxide explosives, similar to what appears to have happened with Shahzad in his Times Square attempt. Zazi also showed poor tradecraft by purchasing large amounts of hydrogen peroxide and acetone in an attempt to make triacetone triperoxide, a very difficult explosive material to use because of its volatility. His unusual shopping habits raised suspicion and, along with other incriminating evidence, eventually led to his arrest before he could initiate his planned attack.

Other plots in recent years such as the Newburgh case as well as plots in Dallas and Springfield, Ill., all three in 2009, failed because the suspects behind the attacks reached out to others to acquire explosive material instead of making it themselves. (In the latter two cases, Hosam Smadi in Dallas and Michael Finton in Springfield unwittingly worked with FBI agents to obtain fake explosive material that they thought they could use to attack prominent buildings in their respective cities and were subsequently arrested.) In seeking help, they made themselves vulnerable to interception, and local and federal authorities were able to infiltrate the cell planning the attack and ensure that the operatives never posed a serious threat. Unlike these failed plotters, Shahzad traveled to Pakistan to receive training and used everyday materials to construct his explosive devices, thus mitigating the risk of being discovered.

A much more successful model of waging a jihadist attack on U.S. soil is the case of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in November 2009. Instead of traveling to Yemen or Pakistan for training, which would have aroused suspicion, Maj. Hasan used skills he already possessed and simple means to conduct his attack, something that kept his profile low (although he was under investigation for posting comments online seemingly justifying suicide attacks). Ultimately, Hasan killed more people with a handgun than the recently botched or thwarted attacks involving relatively complicated IEDs.

With AQAP leader al-Wahayshi advocating smaller and easier attacks against softer targets in the fall of 2009 (shortly before Maj. Hasan’s attack at Fort Hood), it appears that the tactic is making its way through jihadist circles. This highlights the risk that ideologically radicalized individuals (as Shahzad certainly appears to be) can still pose to the public, despite their seeming inability to successfully construct and deploy relatively complex IEDs.

Slipping Through the Cracks?

It is likely that U.S. authorities were aware of Shahzad due to his recent five-monthlong trip to Pakistan. Authorities may also have intercepted the telephone conversations that Shahzad had with people in Pakistan using a pre-paid cell phone (which are more anonymous but still traceable). Such activities usually are noticed by authorities, and we anticipate that there will be a storm in the media in the coming days and weeks about how the U.S. government missed signs pointing to Shahzad’s radicalization and operational activity. The witch hunt would be far more intense if the attack had actually succeeded — as it could well have. However, as we’ve noted in past attacks such as the July 7, 2005, London bombings, the universe of potential jihadists is so wide that the number of suspects simply overwhelms the government’s ability to process them all. The tactical reality is that the government simply cannot identify all potential attackers in advance and thwart every attack. Some suspects will inevitably fly under the radar.

This reality flies in the face of the expectation that governments somehow must prevent all terrorist attacks. But the uncomfortable truth in the war against jihadist militants is that there is no such thing as complete security. Given the diffuse nature of the threat and of the enemy, and the wide availability of soft targets in open societies, there is simply no intelligence or security service in the world capable of identifying every aspiring militant who lives in or enters a country and of pre-empting their intended acts of violence.