By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

WASHINGTON DC, USA – The Pakistani-American man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square has told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots, an American official said Thursday.

The would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was inspired by the violent rhetoric of Mr. Awlaki, said the official, who would speak of the investigation only on condition of anonymity. “He listened to him, and he did it,” the official said, referring to Saturday’s attempted bombing on a busy street in Times Square.

New evidence is deepening a notion, albeit still unverified, that the failed car bombing in Times Square was not the work of one disgruntled young man, but inspired by a global extremist network stretching from Yemen to Pakistan, united by the Internet and a common radical vision of faith.

According to one account, Shahzad told investigators that he actually met with Awlaki – as well as Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, and even Abdulmutallah, who tried to blow up a Northwest airliner landing in Detroit on Christmas Day. Investigators are skeptical, reports the New York Daily News, saying Shahzad claims to know most of the biggest players in the world of radical Islam. They have yet to verify his statements.

If true, Shahzad’s apparent susceptibility to Awlaki’s sermons, coupled with an ability to travel to Pakistan for training, and then back to the US with an American passport, offers a disturbing portrait of a virtual jihadi highway, linking mentality to means and money.

Investigators are not yet sure where that money came from. They are looking to question a courier who allegedly funneled money to Shahzad to pay for the SUV used in the attack, as well as the improvised explosives. But the source country remains unknown, the Associated Press reports.

As a result, the United States is likely to push Pakistan to press harder against militant enclaves in that country’s North Waziristan region, deemed the epicenter of the network behind the failed bombing. But that is likely to strain an already threadbare relationship between Washington and Islamabad, experts warn.

For more information, please see:

CSM – US-Born Cleric Inspired Times Square Bomber Faisal Shahzad – 7 May 2010

New York Times – Times Sq. Bomb Suspect Is Linked To Militant Cleric – 6 May 2010

AOL News – Times Square Suspect Reportedly Inspired By Radical Cleric – 7 May 2010