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Fireball Video: If The Times Square Bomb Worked

Ben Yakas

Published Sep 30, 2010

Modified Sep 30, 2010

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Ben Yakas

Published Sep 30, 2010

Modified Sep 30, 2010

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Prosecutors told the judge in the trial of Faisal Shahzad, the man who tried and failed to blow up Times Square last May, that Shahzad deserves life in jail. They argued in court papers that Shahzad, who already pleaded guilty to charges, sought to "exact revenge on the same country where he had lived for nearly a decade and in which he had applied to become a citizen." To buffer their recommendation to the judge, who will sentence Shahzad next Tuesday, they revealed more details about his plans, as well as a Joint Terrorism Task Force bomb test video (you can see it above) to show what the devastation would have looked like.

The feds also said that Shahzad told authorities that he thought his bomb would kill at least 40 people, and planned to set off another one two weeks later. "If Times Square was successful, he was coming back for more," a senior federal law enforcement official told the Daily News. He planned out the attack months ahead, by studying live web feeds on the Internet to determine which areas drew the largest crowds and when they would be busiest. And because of his "lasting sense of pride in his actions," including the invocation of the word "mujahid," (which the Post says translates as "Muslim holy warrior"), prosecutors believe there is no chance for rehabilitation.

The prosecutors gave the Judge two videos: one created by the Pakistan Taliban showing Shahzad holding a Koran, saying, "Get up and learn from me and make an effort. Nothing is impossible if you just keep in mind that Allah is with you." In the other, the Joint Terrorism Task Force bomb test video, you can see a Nissan Pathfinder, the kind of car Shahzad packed with explosives on May 1st, explode into a massive fireball in a Pennsylvania field, destroying four other cars along with it. “While it is impossible to calculate precisely the impact of Shahzad’s bomb had it detonated, the controlled detonation conducted by the [Joint Terrorism Task Force] demonstrated that those effects would have been devastating to the surrounding area,” prosecutors wrote.

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bombing

faisal shahzad

Times Square

times square bomb

Ben Yakas

Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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