Updated on
Summary
Authorities in New York said Sunday that Al-Qaeda was not behind an attempted car bombing of Times Square and that police had several strong leads, including camera footage of a suspicious man leaving the scene.President Barack Obama vowed to track down the perpetrators as security forces began scrutinizing evidence from a Nissan Pathfinder SUV abandoned late Saturday in the theatre district with a large, spluttering homemade bomb inside. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the initial suspects in the minds of many were not to blame. There is no evidence that this is tied in with Al-Qaeda or any other big terrorist organization, Bloomberg said. Earlier, city police chief Raymond Kelly dismissed a claim of responsibility made over the Internet by the Pakistani group Tehreek-e-Taliban. I am confident we will find out who did it, Bloomberg said alongside the police officer who was first on the scene and whom the billionaire mayor was treating to dinner in Times Square as a reward. This is the crossroads of the world. People feel safe in New York and they will continue to come here, Bloomberg said. Kelly said the bomb, had it exploded in the teeming entertainment district, would have created a significant fireball. The car would have at least have been cut in half, he said. Police had a mass of clues, starting with footage from 82 security cameras in Times Square and the car and bomb, which were hauled to police laboratories in New York. One sequence of film showed a man that Kelly said was acting in a furtive manner and changing his clothes as he walked away from the area. He was a white male in his 40s and seen shedding a dark colored shirt revealing a red one underneath, Kelly said. In addition to that footage, Kelly said a tourist passerby had contacted police to say he too may have got a picture of the individual caught in the frame while he was filming a nearby mounted policeman. As soon as a bomb was feared police evacuated thousands of people from the area, turning the usually crammed streets into a ghost town. Many tourists were unable to reach theaters or hotels, but Broadway shows managed to go on and were running normally Sunday, a trade group said. New York City police are on constant alert after a string of terrorist plots and alleged plots in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
