Thirty-year-old Faisal Shahzad said that even though he had traveled to Pakistan to receive terror training from Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, it was what he witnessed while there that actually spurred him to load up a Nissan Pathfinder with propane and leave it to explode in Times Square. According to the Post, after drone attacks by the United States government wiped out the leadership of the group, Shahzad told authorities that he vowed revenge. Sources told the tabloid that during his months in Pakistan Shahzad witnessed many of the drone attacks, which have gone on for the past year. So far U.S. authorities have downplayed the Pakistani Taliban’s claims of credit for the attempted Times Square bombing, even though the group specifically mentioned it was revenge for drone attacks. But yesterday Pakistani foreign minister Makhdoom Qureshi told reporters, “This is a blowback. This is a reaction. This is retaliation. And you could expect that.”
