New York: A new CCTV footage Store surveillance video surfaced on Thursday, reportedly showing a man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in New York's Times Square buying consumer-grade fireworks at a Pennsylvania store a couple of months earlier.
The video showed a man, believed to be Faisal Shahzad, buying fireworks from one of the company's stores in Pennsylvania.
An official for Phantom Fireworks said the fireworks were not strong enough to make a powerful bomb.
According to store vice president William Wiemer, on March 8 Shahzad bought six to eight boxes each containing 36 Silver Salute M88 fireworks from Phantom Fireworks in Matamoras, Pennsylvania.
Each M88 has firepower that is less than one-sixth the size of an aspirin, the company said.
Shahzad faces "terrorism" and weapons charges in New York after authorities said he admitted rigging a sport utility vehicle with a crude bomb of firecrackers, propane and gasoline on Tuesday based on explosives training he received in Pakistan.
The 30-year-old 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.
Authorities say Shahzad has admitted his role in the botched bombing plot and is cooperating with investigators, but don't yet know whether others were involved in the plan to blow up the SUV.
No court appearance has yet been scheduled for Shahzad, a spokeswoman for the US attorney's office in Manhattan said on Thursday.
Officials said on Wednesday that Shahzad, drove a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder to Times Square from Connecticut on April 28, apparently to figure out where would be the best place to leave it later.
He then returned April 30 to drop off a black Isuzu, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.
The official said Shahzad went back on Saturday and left the sport utility vehicle loaded with firecrackers, gasoline and propane, enough to likely create a fireball and kill nearby tourists and Broadway theatre goers had it gone off successfully.
US authorities said they have yet to establish a firm link between Shahzad and an extremist group.
Shahzad is believed to have been working alone when he began preparing the Times Square attack, almost immediately after returning in February from his native land, Pakistan, authorities said
The extremist group, the Pakistan Taliban, said on Thursday it had no links with Shahzad and learned only through the media that he had told US authorities of his training in a militant camp in Waziristan.
The group has previously claimed responsibility for Saturday's failed attack in a video released Monday before Shahzad's arrest.
Shahzad spent his formative years in Karachi, leaving in 1999 for the United States, where he married an American of Pakistani descent, officials said.
His wife and two children are believed to be in Pakistan, but they have gone underground since Shahzad's arrest.