New York: A Connecticut man pulled off a plane bound for Dubai and arrested for Saturday's night's failed bid to set off a car bomb in Times Square has made statements implicating himself, and has told the authorities that he acted alone, a law enforcement official said on Tuesday morning.
The man, Faisal Shahzad, 30, was taken into custody just before midnight at Kennedy Airport aboard an Emirates flight that had just pulled away from the gate, officials said. Two other men were also interviewed by authorities but were released, according to another law enforcement official. Mr. Shahzad had apparently driven to the airport in a white Isuzu Trooper that was found in a parking lot with a handgun inside, the official said.
The official added that the other men may have been taken into custody simply because they had similar names.
Mr. Shahzad is a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan -- from which he had recently returned after a five-month visit -- who lives in Bridgeport, Conn., the authorities said. He was already aboard Emirates flight 202 when he was identified by the Department of Homeland Security's United States Customs and Border Protection, according to a joint statement issued by the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the southern district of New York, the F.B.I. and the New York Police Department.
Officials called the plane back, the airline said. All of the passengers were taken off, and they, their luggage and the Boeing 777 were screened before the flight was allowed to depart, about seven hours late, at 6:29 a.m. It was not immediately known when Mr. Shahzad bought his ticket. Emirates said in a statement that a total of three passengers were removed from the plane.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., in an early morning statement, confirmed Mr. Shahzad's arrest for driving a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder found loaded with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertilizer into the heart of Times Square on Saturday night. Mr. Shahzad is believed to have bought the vehicle from a Connecticut woman within the last three weeks for $1,300, a person briefed on the investigation said, and it was that transaction that eventually led to his dramatic arrest on the airport tarmac.
The law enforcement official who said Mr. Shahzad had implicated himself also revealed more details of the transaction. He said authorities had found Mr. Shahzad through the email address he had given the seller. He said the two had met in a parking lot in Connecticut, that Mr. Shahzad had given the Pathfinder a test drive, and the he'd negotiated the price down to $1,300 from the $1,800 initially sought by the seller.
While Mr. Shahzad said he had acted alone, law enforcement officials have said the investigation is, in the words of one, "very much ongoing," and the F.B.I. agents and police detectives from the Joint Terrorist Task Force who arrested him have not developed evidence to either prove or disprove his claims. Charges against Mr. Shahzad were not announced, but he was expected to be charged Tuesday in federal court.
"Over the course of the day today, we have gathered significant additional evidence that led to tonight's arrest," Mr. Holder said. "The investigation is ongoing, as are our attempts to gather useful intelligence, and we continue to pursue a number of leads." He continued, "But it's clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans."
An official in Pakistan's Interior Ministry said that Mr. Shahzad had come to Pakistan in April 2009 and departed on August 5 on an Emirates Airways flight. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Shahzad stayed in the port city of Karachi during that period.
A senior Pakistani security official whose organization works closely with American officials said the Americans had yet to share details of the case with Pakistanis. He said the investigation would depend on where Mr. Shahzad is believed to have traveled after reaching Pakistan. Some reports said Mr. Shahzad traveled to Peshawar, the gateway city to the country's militant-controlled western border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, said Tuesday that his country would cooperate with American officials as they continued their investigation, Reuters reported.
In a statement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg thanked law enforcement officials, saying their "swift efforts led to this arrest after only 48 hours of around-the-clock investigation."
"I hope their impressive work serves as a lesson to anyone who would do us harm," he said. The authorities began focusing on Mr. Shahzad after they tracked the sport utility vehicle to its previously registered owner in Bridgeport, Conn., who had advertised it for sale on several Web sites. The former owner said the buyer paid cash, and the sale was handled without any formal paperwork.
The former owner told investigators that it appeared the buyer was of Middle Eastern or Hispanic descent, but could not recall his name.
The authorities have been exploring whether the man or others who might have been involved in the attempted bombing had been in contact with people or groups overseas, according to federal officials.
The investigation was shifted on Monday to the control of the international terrorism branch of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency group led by the Justice Department, according to two federal officials.
"As we move forward, we will focus on not just holding those responsible for it accountable, but also on obtaining any intelligence about terrorist organizations overseas," Mr. Holder said.
Officials cautioned that the investigation of possible international contacts did not mean they had established a connection to a known terrorist group.
"It's a prominent lead that they're following, the international association," said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. "But there's still a lot of information being gathered."
President Obama was notified of the arrest at 12:05 a.m. by his counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, the sixth time he had been briefed on the case over the past day, said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.
Early Tuesday, at Mr. Shahzad's former home in Shelton, Conn., just outside Bridgeport, a neighbor said that Mr. Shahzad and his wife, Huma Mian, spoke limited English and kept mostly to themselves. The couple had two young children, a girl and a boy, said the neighbor, Brenda Thurman.
Ms. Thurman said the couple had lived at the house at 119 Long Hill Avenue for about three years before moving out last year. Mr. Shahzad left around May, she said, and his wife followed about a month later.
The house was a gray, two story Colonial-style three-bedroom built in 2003, according to the real estate site trulia.com.
Ms. Thurman said Mr. Shahzad got up early every morning and left to work nicely dressed, and had told her that he worked on Wall Street.
"I think he caught the train to New York," she said.
On Monday, prior to the arrest, there was a sweeping response to the attempted attack in the tourist-packed city-within-a-city of Times Square -- including an increased police presence, vehicle inspections and a touch of panic from veteran New Yorkers when a manhole fire flared five blocks from the scene of the failed bombing. Consolidated Edison blamed faulty wiring for the fire.
The recent sale of the Pathfinder began online. An advertisement that appears to be for the vehicle, which had 141,000 miles on the odometer and was listed for sale at $1,300 on at least two Web sites, emphasized that it was in good condition -- "CLEAN inside and out!!" -- with a recently repaired alternator and a new gas pump, distributor and front tires.
"It does have some rust as you can see in the picture," the seller allowed on NothingButCars.net, "but other than that, it runs great."
The other advertisement appeared on Craigslist.
In Bridgeport, the seller refused to answer questions.
"You can't interview her," said an unidentified man at the woman's two-story, white clapboard house. "She already talked to the F.B.I."
The police earlier on Monday sifted through footage from 82 city cameras mounted from 34th Street to 51st Street between Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue, and from untold number of business and tourist cameras.
Investigators initially focused on a man who appeared to be in his 40s who was seen on one video, walking away from the area where the Pathfinder was parked and through Shubert Alley, which runs between 44th and 45th Streets. He looked over his shoulder at least twice and pulled off a shirt, revealing a red T-shirt underneath.
The New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said investigators still wanted to speak to that man but acknowledged that he might not be connected to the failed bombing. Paul J. Browne, the department's top spokesman, said the police had stopped looking for additional video in the area that might have tracked the man's movements.
"It may turn out that he was just somebody in the area, but not connected with the car bomb," Mr. Browne said.
Before the arrest occurred, the police had said they might release footage of a man running north on Broadway at the time that a fire broke out in the Pathfinder.
The materials found in the Pathfinder were to be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's laboratory in Quantico, Va., for analysis, the police said.
Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, had said on the "Today" show that it was premature to label any person or group as suspect. "Right now, every lead has to be pursued," she said. "I caution against premature decisions one way or the other."