A Pakistani-born American citizen defiantly pleaded guilty on Monday to attempting to set off a car bomb in New York’s Times Square, saying that Islamist extremists would continue to attack the United States.
Faisal Shahzad, 30, admitted travelling to Pakistan to receive bomb-making training from the Pakistani Taliban, called Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and receiving $12,000 from the group to carry out the failed plot on May 1.
Shahzad, who has a wife and two children living in Pakistan, pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted terrorism transcending national borders. He faces mandatory life in prison.
“I’m going to plead guilty 100 times over,” Shahzad told the court. Until the United States stops drone aircraft attacks and the occupation of “Muslim lands,” Shahzad said “we will be attacking the United States and I plead guilty to that.”
“One has to understand where I’m coming from,” Shahzad said in a long speech frequently interrupted by US district judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum seeking clarification. “I consider myself a Mujahid, a Muslim-soldier.”
He said his intention was to do “damage to the building, injure the people or kill the people.” Shahzad awkwardly parked a sports utility vehicle in Times Square with its engine running and hazard lights flashing on a balmy Saturday evening in May. “I ignited the fuses and I gave the time of 2.5 to 5 minutes and I left the car,” Shahzad told the court. “I was waiting to hear a sound.”