ISLAMABAD - Pakistan on Tuesday vowed full cooperation on U.S. enquiries into a Pakistani-American held over an attempted bombing in New York, throwing the spotlight back onto international terror plots in the country.
U.S. officials said Faisal Shahzad, a naturalised U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested for allegedly driving a car bomb into Times Square that narrowly failed to explode on Saturday night.
News reports said Mr. Shahzad, 30, lived in Connecticut and returned recently from a five-month trip to Pakistan, including Peshawar, a known transit point for Al-Qaeda and Taliban recruits near the Afghan border.
US police arrested Mr. Shahzad as he was trying to flee to Dubai on Emirates flight EK202, with CNN reporting that Pakistan was his likely final destination.
Attorney General Eric Holder said additional evidence had been gathered and investigators were seeking information on "overseas" terrorist groups.
In Islamabad, the Pakistani government, which is dependent on US assistance as it battles Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants blamed for bombings that have killed thousands, was quick to pledge assistance.
"Pakistan and the U.S. have ongoing, robust cooperation on counter-terrorism. If required, we will extend the fullest cooperation to the US," foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told AFP.
One official confirmed there had been "initial discussion" on Mr. Shahzad at talks between US ambassador to Islamabad Anne Patterson and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi but declined to reveal further details.
Pakistan's Taliban, the country's premier national security threat which experts see as increasingly close to Al-Qaeda, has been the only group to claim responsibility for the attempted bombing.
Its leader -- the ruthless, energetic and youthful Hakimullah Mehsud -- threatened to attack U.S. cities with suicide bombers, seemingly back from the dead in videos that emerged two days after the attempted bombing.
"The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in the major cities," said Mehsud, in the video released by monitoring groups.
It was his first apparent appearance since U.S. officials believed he was likely killed in a U.S drone strike in northwestern Pakistan on January 14.
IntelCenter, a US-based group that monitors Islamist websites, warned that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) "may have underway a multi-staged attack involving differing attack times and multiple cities".
"Messaging analysis and other indicators are increasingly pointing to a high threat of additional strikes... most likely focusing on mass casualties, in the days and weeks ahead," IntelCenter warned.
Although the TTP claim was widely dismissed and security officials doubt its capacity to attack the United States, Mr. Shahzad's arrest highlighted the nerve centre of international militancy rooted in parts of Pakistan.
"There will be renewed pressure on Pakistan after arrest of Faisal Mr. Shahzad," Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani expert on militant groups, told AFP.
"This will give Washington an opportunity to say that terrorism is originating from Pakistan and that it should do more to curb insurgency and terrorism," he added.
The United States has put Pakistan on the front line of the war on Al-Qaeda and branded its border area with Afghanistan the most dangerous place in the world, where militant groups are believed train recruits from around the globe.
London has said the majority of extremist plots which Britain faces have links to Pakistan. Neighbouring Afghanistan also blames Pakistani militants for attacks on Afghan and US-led NATO troops fighting a Taliban insurgency.
In India, a judge found a 22-year-old Pakistani, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, guilty this week of murder and waging war against India during the siege.
India blamed Pakistani-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the 2007 Mumbai attacks, which Indians liken to the September 11, 2001 attacks, which suspended peace talks with Pakistan and which left 166 people dead.
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