The Arabic-language Al Arabiya TV channel on Wednesday broadcast excerpts of a video in which the man who tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square says he plans to take revenge on behalf of “martyred” terrorists.
In the video, Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty last month to all charges against him in the attempted bombing case, says: “This attack on the United States will also be a revenge attack for all the mujahdeen … and the weak and oppressed people of Muslims.”
“I really wish that the hearts of the Muslims will be pleased with this attack,” he says in the video, which was recorded before his failed attack in New York on May 1.
Shahzad describes Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, both of whom were killed by U.S. forces, as martyrs and vows to “take revenge on their behalf.”
Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, speaks in halting English and sports a beard and black turban, and he has an assault rifle propped up on his left.
In the video, Shahzad says “eight years has passed by in Afghanistan and you will see that the Muslim war has just started … until Islam is spread in the whole world.”
“Islam is coming to the world … democracy will be defeated, and so was communism defeated … and the word of Allah will be supreme,” he says.
In a court appearance in New York last month, Shahzad said if the U.S. did not get out of Iraq and Afghanistan “we will be attacking U.S.”
Shahzad revealed during his interrogation that he had traveled to Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal belt in December and received training and financial assistance from the Pakistani Taliban.
• Ashish Kumar Sen can be reached at asen@washingtontimes.com.
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