'I was expecting you,' bombing suspect tells agents

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 5, 2010 11:41 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The Times Square car bomb suspect sensed authorities were closing in on him in the hours leading up to his arrest, law enforcement sources told CNN on Wednesday.

"I was expecting you. Are you NYPD or FBI?" Faisal Shahzad asked a law enforcement official when he was seized on a plane late Monday -- a dramatic arrest minutes before the Emirates passenger jet was to depart from John F. Kennedy International Airport for Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The sources, directly involved in the investigation of the botched bombing attempt on Saturday night, told CNN that Shahzad suspected authorities were on to him after news reports that he allegedly bought a vehicle in Connecticut.

Shahzad, arrested by New York detectives and FBI agents, is now in federal custody.

He was able to board Emirates Flight 202 late Monday despite being put on a no-fly list earlier in the day, leading some to question whether the no-fly list worked.

The official said the Transportation Security Administration will require airlines to check the no-fly list within two hours of being electronically notified of additions or changes. Previously, airlines were required to re-check the list within 24 hours.

Shahzad made his reservation by phone as he drove to the airport just hours before the flight, investigators said. When he paid for his ticket in cash at the ticket counter, the airline had not refreshed its information, so his name did not raise any red flags, a senior counterterrorism official told CNN.

Shahzad was arrested shortly before midnight Monday after U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which reviews all flight manifests, caught his name when the airline sent the agency its passenger list, according to the counterterrorism official.

Authorities had tailed Shahzad throughout the day, but lost him before he arrived at the airport, the official said.

An FBI official said surveillance operations are designed with redundancies in place, and that agents had to avoid tipping off Shahzad that he was being followed.

At a Tuesday news conference, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defended surveillance efforts.

"I was here all yesterday and through much of last night and was aware of the tracking that was going on, and I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him," Holder said.

Charges filed Tuesday against Shahzad paint him as a would-be terrorist who sought explosives training in Pakistan's volatile Waziristan region, where government forces have been working to root out Taliban militants.

The court documents show Shahzad apparently continued to have contact with Pakistan upon his return to the United States, receiving a series of 12 phone calls originating from his country of birth in the days leading up to the incident -- five of which were made on the same day he bought the Nissan Pathfinder used in the attempted attack Saturday night.

Those phone calls ceased just three days before the failed bombing, the documents show.

"It is clear that this was a terrorist plot," Holder said Tuesday. It could have caused "death and destruction in the heart of New York City."

A Pakistani Taliban spokesman said Wednesday his group has no link to Shahzad, but he warned that its fighters have been sent to the United States and the "results" of that decision will soon be evident.

--Rep. Pete Hoekstra

Azam Tariq, spokesman for the group, told CNN by phone Wednesday that Shahzad's action was "very good."

While it's possible he got training from other groups, Tariq said that Shahzad didn't receive such instruction from his organization, officially known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan.

Five federal charges were filed against Shahzad on Tuesday in U.S. District Court: attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, use of a destructive device in connection with criminal violence, transporting and receiving explosives, and damaging and destroying property by means of fire.

Read complaint filed in federal court Tuesday (PDF)

If convicted, Shahzad faces up to life in prison on the charges.

Shahzad has waived his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney, and is cooperating in the investigation, a source familiar with the probe said.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, noted that, along with a Nigerian man who tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day, this is the second high-profile incident recently where someone on the U.S. no-fly list has managed to board a plane.

"Whatever went wrong, I hope they get their acts together and correct it," Rangel said. "The good thing about this is that nobody was hurt in either case, but ... someone ought to come up with the answer and see that it doesn't happen again."

The terror plot may dominate discussions Wednesday as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg travels to Washington for a previously scheduled Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on terrorism.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine and ranking member of the committee, has already expressed concerns.

"A key question for me is why this suspect was allowed to board the plane in the first place," Collins said, according to The New York Times. "There appears to be a troubling gap between the time they had his name and the time he got on the plane."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN that U.S. intelligence efforts have to be better.

"Being lucky can't be our national security strategy," Hoekstra said. "We were lucky on Christmas Day. We were lucky last week."

CNN's Susan Candiotti and Jeanne Meserve contributed to this report.