In Pakistan, Shahzad does have some relatives in Karachi, but his father’s family lives near Peshawar, in a suburb called Hayatabad. This story in the International News, a Pakistani newspaper, states that his father is a retired Air Vice Marshal in the Pakistan Air Force.
Air Vice Marshal (R) Baharul Haq, father of Faisal Shahzad, the accused in New York’s failed bomb plot, hurriedly vacated the family home in Hayatabad town here late Tuesday apparently to avoid attention.
Eyewitnesses said he packed some belongings in a vehicle and left the house located in Phase IV of the posh Hayatabad town along with male and female members of the family. Their destination wasn’t known.
Earlier, members of the media, in particularly TV crews had converged on the house in a bid to talk to family members and learn more about Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested Tuesday in the US on charges of plotting the vehicle bomb attack and now accused of an attempted act of terrorism. However, nobody in Air Vice Marshal (R) Baharul Haq’s household or the neighbours were ready to talk to reporters. A Geo TV reporter was shown outside the house trying to engage in conversation with neighbours. Some people in the neighbourhood expressed ignorance about Faisal Shahzad’s arrest in the US. (link)
What is there to learn from this? First, I think it reaffirms that potential terrorists could come from virtually any economic and educational background; a surprising number of major terror suspects in recent years have had advanced degrees (Shahzad has an MBA). Second, there’s hardly a long history of identification with extremist ideology here. With a big smile and a bluetooth headset in his ear, he looks like he should be selling me cell phone accessories at the AT&T store, not wiring amateur bombs. Finally, this guy is the son of a senior officer in the military, a powerful institution in Pakistan, with several other male family members apparently also in the military. They are undoubtedly deeply embarrassed by all this.
In the days and weeks to come, I’m sure we’ll learn more about Faisal Shahzad. Judging from the many mistakes he made in assembling a bomb (with the wrong kind of fertilizer! propane tanks that weren’t opened! completely useless wiring and timers!), my guess is that he had little, if any, “training.” It seems more like a version of the American dream gone horribly awry: something snapped.
South Asia is ground zero for the “War on Terror.”. So sad that another dumb rich kid makes Muslims look bad.
I’m sure somewhere in Pakistan at this moment they are working to improve their training program to address this issue. We should see the results of the improved curriculum soon enough.
I don’t want to be too provocative, but, from the ‘RAW’ perspective–that is way too nice of a gloss on the true goals of the Pakistani military. Mordor does exist in our world.
Wow. The Onion got a new website?
Do we make it too easy for foreigners(and yes, even if that includes our dear relatives) to get citizenship? This guy is barely 30 and he is a naturalized citizen already. Maybe we should put a 10 year requirement instead of 5 years?
We can’t say his military family would be embarassed. At this point, we have no clue.
I doubt this guy never vented about America at family or friends gatherings. I doubt all this came out of nowhere.
What mind boggling is the play Pakistani part of Pakistani American identity is getting. I feel it is an attempted to other the problem. He is an American citizen and I feel it is time for introspection
Dalai Lama/Tibet issue is shrinking in importance. When the blow from Bharat/US/China comes it will be unexpected, but final and lethal.
Shilpa,
What does no. 7 has to do with the Amardeep’s post? It is comments like this that make perfectly reasonable posts into flame wars
It’s 5 years as a permanent resident which, unless you’re a refugee or have some other special dispensation, takes 5 years to establish by itself. Time here doesn’t mean anything so far as loyalty to your country is concerned. We’ve all seen privileged, upper-middle class native-born Americans complaining about how much America sucks and they’re so hard done by. The tinder is there. All you need is the right ideology and a promise of heroism to spark the conflagration.
Why feel sorry for this bloke? The “mujahideen” are nothing but cowards who slander a righteous ideology for some alleged award in Jinnah (Heaven). Most Muslims I know in Amrika are too busy living their lives and assimilating to a new land. An American Islam is emerging, one that denounces these punks.
The Pakistani Americans I know are pretty successful, intermarrying with white people, drink alcohol occasionally, and like me consume bacon on occasion. Some of the more extreme Desi Muslims I know come from India. I frequently hear reports that Muslims in India fare a lot worse than those in the bottom Hindu castes. My experience in India has been that of a tourist. So I can’t really say, but the Deobandi movement in South Asia is pretty rigid in their interpretation of Islam.
I am not trying to start a flame war. Just look up the difference, on Wikipedia, between “negligence” and “strict liability.” US/India/China are going to impose “strict liability” if this ever goes much further than incompetent attacks.
I am not sure if anyone is feeling bad for him, I am only questioning the coverage of the incident
I don’t think that’s true at all. We (Indian Hindus) fear much more the Pakistanis than the Indian Muslims. Why? Smart ones (like Musharraf) left India for Pakistan at Partition. Remaining Muslims are mostly OK, if economically and socially backward. It’s the ones w/ the Ph.D. that RAW needs to take out when they get involved in anti-Indian affairs.
What is macabrely funny is the moronic comment from Bloomberg bending over backwards to be PC saying that it was probably somebody who disliked Obama’s healthcare plan. With such denial of the reality, there is no hope for stopping this insidious threat.
Look at the bright side everyone. We were mistaken for white! Teabaggers even, who are like Aryans. Scythian Pride.
Amardeep, it looks like the American dream is alive and well.
And shilpa, you are not making any sense. Please stop thread-jacking!
Mmmm…Bacon
@Shilpa Please think this over: “Its better to keep ur mouth shut and let others think u are a fool rather than open ur mouth and prove it” I didn’t make it up. It was allegedly said by an intelligent, famous man. I’ll leave it to u to find who.
Oh, and are you all as perplexed as I am that they keep talking about how Faisal “didn’t like sunlight”? (according to a neighbor of his– http://www.cnn.com/). What are they trying to say, that he is vampire-like? A werewolf? Just seems like a really weird way to malign a terrorist– to compare him to some kind of science-fiction creature.
Ofcourse, i meant the #17 Shilpa.
ohhhh. i thought you were still on that Celebrity Big Brother bruhaha.
“…ohhhh. i thought you were still on that Celebrity Big Brother bruhaha.”
Brewhaha? Isn’t that the one about the funny tea partier…?
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Most white collar people do not trust people with Turbans or awkward Islamic names. They’ll put on a front but you should see the jokes they crack. It’s horrifying.
Is there a point to comment no. 24?
Musing stated “Oh, and are you all as perplexed as I am that they keep talking about how Faisal “didn’t like sunlight”?
I am not perplexed at all, my dear friend. Clearly, Shahzad took to heart his nani/dadi’s advise about not going out in the sunlight to avoid becoming dark. I wonder if he also did not drink tea to protect his complexion.
Sorry Pagal Admi, we deleted some offensive comments. I think you’re now talking about comment #20.
Poor guy is obviously a victim of a setup by the Tea baggers and those Militia fanatics.
Manju, what else do you expect. One of the deep thinkers of the GOPers, Sean Hannity no less, called the conservatives to train a 1000 Timothy McVeighs. And earlier this year, wingnutcase (aka hardened GOPer) flew a plane into the Federal building in Austin, Tx. And with wingnut militia distributing cop-killer videos (Hutaree?) the fear is well founded. This is not the place to debate what is really driving the GOPers, but if you want that debate….
SM Intern: I actually was referring to comment No. 24 by Tigray as it didn’t make sense to me. The comment by musing in No. 20 was actually pretty interesting.
I’m a little amused by the reverential tone taken by American reporters when referring to the illustrous Air Force daddy. American reporters: ever heard of all the military dictators, coup, nexus of military and Taliban, control of politics by the military, joint ventures between the military and Islamic fundamentalist warlords – that permeate the history of Pakistan? Unless that’s a sole forte of the Army and not the Air Force, I wouldn’t be too reverential about Pakistani military officers. But hey – after 50 years the US has finally come to acknowledge that terrorists thrive in Pakistan, albeit in hushed tones, so I guess they’ve come a long way. More to go before they acknowledge that failed state Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism due to various individuals who control the country.
I am scared that this was jus a ploy and it was meant to fail. But all the points to NYPD for doing what they do day in day out. I was steps away from times sq on 45th street partying and didnt know why times sq was blocked off
Did anyone else notice how eager Pakistan was to help round up suspects as soon as Shazhad was arrested? This holds a lesson for India. After Mumbai, Pakistan denied that any Pakistanis had anything to do with the attack. When the evidence came out that the planning was done there, there were some cosmetic arrests, but many were released. Those who are still in Pakistani custody awaiting trial will probably be released soon.
Why the different reactions? Is it because Pakistan fears an American military strike? Well, that is already happening in the tribal areas, and a larger scale operation by the U.S. is not feasible. But, America does have substantial economic leverage over Pakistan, which India does not have. Given India’s lack of military options and economic leverage, it may have to just focus on improving internal intelligence gathering, training police, and bringing emergency services up to better standards.
Why not? His citizenship is a mere technicality. My mother is an American citizen but both of us consider her Indian. Hell, I was born here and because I lived for some time in India, I don’t object to some Indian identity. This is not a guy who lived here all his life. And he is not someone who emotionally became an American either upon naturalization. The naturalization was a mere technique to make life comfortable for him assuming these kind of thoughts only surfaced recently.
thanks for the post amardeep. i’m curious to learn more about this guy’s story. i really want to hate him but i’d like to know what made him turn, especially since he is being so cooperative in interrogation now. why did he go for training? and where are his wife and daughters? i havent seen any mention of their whereabouts.
i think we’re better served by ignoring comments that encourage people to leave behind benign traditions (alcohol, bacon, funny names) in an effort to appear more integrated. you can integrate by focusing on common values – family, trust, education, being a good neighbor, charity, etc.
Did anyone else notice how eager Pakistan was to help round up suspects as soon as Shazhad was arrested?
My theory is that they made the arrests because it was easy to do — these are folks who weren’t making any effort to hide. It seems like his family, which is doing very well, wasn’t involved with this — they may not even have been aware that he was up to anything.
and where are his wife and daughters? i havent seen any mention of their whereabouts.
In one of the articles I saw in the Pakistani media, they suggested that his wife and kids are back in Pakistan right now.
I think background may be a factor in terms of suicide bombings. IN this case, the guy obviously was a coward who tried to escape. He foreclosed on a house.Became a citizen despite lack of love for the country. Doesn’t give me a good picture of this guy.
Terrorist trainers should accept only GPAs of 3.0 or higher.
All middle class men with financial problems are suspect. (Re: Faisal and the IRS kamikaze douche)
Cute (yes, I think he is), quiet guys are probably the biggest nutters.
Valid fear. Seems odd that he went through so much trouble to fail and then cooperate so readily (alongside Pakistan’s manifest knee-jerk response). A significant something else is missing here.
Is the “South Asian” dream now a “raisin in the sun”? I can envision H1-B’s all over America telling co-workers–“we Indians have been dealing with this Pakistan problem for decades.”
I heard on the radio the other day that the reason so many of these guys are incompetent is because militants are so suspicious that foreigners (especially Americans) might be spies that they are hesitant to train them and only lowly henchmen end up doing the training oversight.
Yeah, the “GOP wingnut” who railed against George Bush , The Catholic Church among other things in his suicide note. Sounds like a “hardened GOPer”. Somebody needs to put down the Daily Kos bong pipe today. Or atleast not inhale too much.
KXB – “Why the different reactions? Is it because Pakistan fears an American military strike? ” because america gives them billions of dollars, from which hundreds of millions find their way into the ruling elites swiss accounts. but more importantly, america, unlike india, doesn’t make empty threats, not even during the democrat rule – more innocent children, women and men have died the direct result of american bombing of pakistani civilian neighbourhoods than in the entire second term of w.
The IRS clown had a specific reason for going after the IRS… owed them a lot of money. Who was this guy targeting on a Manhattan street ? Irony is that his SUV was spotted by a street vendor who was a Vietnam veteran, the kind of person Napolitano and DHS said fit the profile of a “potential homegrown terrorist”.
iluveggs@35 Thanks for your balanced and productive comment. I especially agree with your statement on focusing on what we have in common.
university of bridgeport mba is “advanced degree” ? maybe i should send in that application for an english phd at lehigh.
I just took that as meaning he has a typical Desi aversion to the sun in that it makes him, gasp, DAAARK! The horror.
nri, Any graduate degree (post-graduate degree in India or Master’s here) is considered an advanced degree. As in, ‘advanced past the bachelor’s degree’.
When does the citizenship stop being a technicality, 10 years after permanent residence? He is an American citizen whether anyone else likes it or not.
Ever hear of “Cold Start“? It is India’s offensive militarty strategy vs. Pakistan. (Sorry I am from a military family and hear about this stuff every time I go home!)
As Praveen, Yogafire pointed out this is being rather presumptuous.
According to the last Pew Report fully 64% of the public regards the U.S. as an enemy, while only 9% describe it as a partner. The pak military may have benefitted from the US tremndously, but they are also far more islamic than the rest of the Pak elite (politicians/landowners, judiciary, etc).
It is much more likely that the family is only deeply embarrassed that he did such a poor job.