New York: Trained agent or incompetent amateur?
Faisal Shahzad - the man of Pakistani origin arrested for parking a car packed with explosives in New York's Times Square - has been co-operating with interrogators and has provided valuable intelligence, but his exact motives remain a mystery. And the big question now is, does Shahzad have links to foreign terror groups or not?
On Tuesday, Shahzad told FBI interrogators that he received explosives training at a terror camp in Pakistan stoking fears that the failed bombing was part of an international plot. But US officials have so far have not been able to verify which terror group he is linked to.
What is now clear is that the Times Square bomb failed to go off because it was badly constructed. The make-shift explosive was composed of crudely-assembled propane tanks, gasoline fertilizer and firecrackers, but the wiring was poorly designed.
According to the police, the detonating agent was a cheap alarm clock attached to a 16-ounce (less than half a kilogram) can of fireworks.
There are many questions unanswered yet:
If Shahzad was truly intent on creating terror, why did he park his car in Times Square, virtually a no-parking zone in one of New York's most heavily policed areas?
Why did he leave his car key and house keys in the ignition?
Shahzad made the effort to buy the second-hand car online, paid in cash, tinted the windows and erased the identification number off the dashboard. But he did not take off the engine or the axel.
Not having covered his tracks with the utmost care, he was traced and picked up in just over 48 hours.
But though Shahzad's plot was simplistic, it was potentially devastating. Officials have not been able to decipher what his motives were or whether he worked alone or with a large organization, but this case represents one of their worst fears - small, frequent strikes instead of a massive assault.
So, an answer to that question is vital. Who is Shahzad? A driven ideologue or a disgruntled individual fallen on hard times? A year ago Shahzad quit his job and the bank foreclosed on his house.
A naturalised U.S. citizen from Pakistan who lived in Connecticut, Shahzad has been charged with terrorism and for possessing weapons of mass destruction after being hauled off a Dubai-bound plane he had boarded and being arrested earlier this week. Authorities say the suspect drove into Times Square on Saturday night and parked a Small Utility Vehicle (SUV), packed with bomb materials, amid tourists and Broadway theater-goers with the intent to kill. His family has called the arrest "a conspiracy."