New York, May 30: Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, arrested for the failed Times Square bombing, got a “crash course” in killing from thugs in Pakistan’s two top terror towns — Miran Shah and Mir Ali, according to a media report here.
Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a retired Pakistani Air Vice Marshal, had recently spent time in the towns most associated with Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies, a senior military officer in Islamabad told the New York Daily News.
The US has accused the Pakistani Taliban, which enjoys a near impunity in the lawless Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, of masterminding the May 1 Times Square failed bombing.
“It was TTP groups from Miran Shah and Mir Ali,” the Pakistani officer told paper.
A US official said “It is a cauldron, an epicenter of extremist activity…There are boomtowns and then there are ‘boom’ towns, and that’s what these are.
–Agencies