New York ‘lone wolf’ was one hour away from finishing his bomb
She also praised the New York Police Department, saying, “I think they handled it well.”
Officials with the NYPD, which conducted the undercover investigation using a confidential informant and a bugged apartment, said the department had to move quickly because Pimentel was about to test a pipe bomb made out of match heads, nails and other ingredients bought at neighborhood hardware and discount stores.
Two law enforcement officials said Monday that the NYPD’s Intelligence Division had sought to get the FBI involved at least twice as the investigation unfolded. Both times, the FBI concluded that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own, they said.
The FBI thought Pimentel “didn’t have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own,” one of the officials said.
The officials were not authorized to speak about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. The FBI’s New York office and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan both declined to comment on Monday.
Pimentel’s lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, said his client was never a true threat.
“If the goal here is to be stopping terror … I’m not sure that this is where we should be spending our resources,” he said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the handling of the case Monday, saying the NYPD kept federal authorities in the loop “all along” before circumstances forced investigators to take swift measures using state charges.
“No question in my mind that we had to take this case down,” Kelly said. “There was an imminent threat.”
Added Kelly: “This is a classic case of what we’ve been talking about �� the lone wolf, an individual, self-radicalized. This is the needle in the haystack problem we face as a country and as a city.”
Authorities described Pimentel as an unemployed U.S. citizen and “al-Qaida sympathizer” who was born in the Dominican Republic. He had lived most of his life in Manhattan, aside from about five years in the upstate city of Schenectady, where authorities say he had an arrested for credit card fraud.
His mother said he was raised Roman Catholic. But he converted to Islam in 2004 and went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, authorities said.
Using a tip from police in Albany, the NYPD had been watching Pimentel using a confidential informant for the past year. Investigators learned that he was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida’s U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, police said.
Pimentel was under constant surveillance as he shopped for the pipe bombmaterials. He also was overheard talking about attacking police patrol cars and postal facilities, killing soldiers returning home from abroad andbombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., authorizes said.
Islaam really isn't as violent as you think
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When I say the Spanish Inquisition, I mean the Witch-Heretic craze which swept throughout Europe. The Spanish Inquisition was part of that, and is just my name for the whole Europe-wide event.
The Crusaders, for the most part, killed, captured, or looted every person in every town they came across. Women, Children, and Prisoners of war were all killed if captured so they would not slow down the Crusade,
ahhh . . . see how efficient the Crusade was? Like Jesus alwasy said - if you’re going to kill people, do it efficiently.
The middle ages church was a political force that was drivne by similar elements that drives other people and political leaders. The people who went along with the church did so because they could not read, many of them, and because the bible was only printed in Latin until the time of Tyndale et al. Because of this shroud of secrecy and the power inherent to the money commanded by the “Church” it acted more like a monarchy than a Christian organization. -
Well CC, I feel its the Church thats the problem, not the Religion. The reason Christianity (Catholics in particular) have commited worse attrocities than the other religions is because of it’s centralized form of control.
People should be worshipping from home, with their families. Do we really need Priests endlessly telling us what to do? Do we need to go to Church to hear a Priest rant on about something half the people in the audience don’t listen to anyway?
In my opinion, no Christian should feel the need to go to Church every Sunday. Religion should be on the inside, between oneself and his/her faith. When it is on the outside, thats when problems arise.
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Yanny, if the crusaders massacared everyone right and left, why would the Arabs native to Leabanon/Holy Land/Syria fight with the crusaders against the mesopotamiam Muslims?
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Because they were conscripted. And the majority of those who fought fought on the side of Saradin and the Muslims.
By the way, Saladin was definately one of the best military leaders of his day. Probably up there in the top 20 leaders of all time.
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Only that it’s Saladin…
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No Yanny, Local Muslim rulers and towns allying witht he “franks” to fight Baghdad
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When I say the Spanish Inquisition, I mean the Witch-Heretic craze which swept throughout Europe. The Spanish Inquisition was part of that, and is just my name for the whole Europe-wide event.
Actually…
the Spanish Inquisition (which noone expects;) ) has not been an important part of the witch hunting. The witch hunting was not in the Middle Ages, but in the early New Ages (or whatever you call that thing that starts about 1500). -
@F_alk:
When I say the Spanish Inquisition, I mean the Witch-Heretic craze which swept throughout Europe. The Spanish Inquisition was part of that, and is just my name for the whole Europe-wide event.
Actually…
the Spanish Inquisition (which noone expects;) ) has not been an important part of the witch hunting. The witch hunting was not in the Middle Ages, but in the early New Ages (or whatever you call that thing that starts about 1500).F_alk is right. The Spanish Inquisition was Kind Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s way of ensuring Spain would remain Catholic by forcing conversion on the Jews and remaining Moores of Spain. Many that converted still kept their traditions at home and were called Marranos meaning schwein. The Spanish Inquisition was aimed at those Marranos in order to make sure everyone in Spain was a loyal Catholic. The Marranos were brutally tortured along with the remaining Jews and Moores who werre expelled from Spain in 1492. Some say that Columbus’ navigator was Jewish, but that’s a different story. The Spanish Inquisition was not a witch hunting process, it was thep urging of Islam and Judaism from Spain. To this day there are Marranos in Spain and many Sepharidic Jews (Jews with origins in Spain) have a tradition of never setting foot in Spain ever again.
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Doh Doh ment Saladin. Playing a game (Ogre Battle) right now which has both a Saradin and a Saladin… mind is overloaded.
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No problem. :)
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Falk, for your benefit
Dark Ages 400-1050
High Middle Ages 1050-1450
Renaissance 1450-1600
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Thanks…. in germany ususally Dark Age and High Middle Age are put together to Middle Age, with distincting two or three “eras” in that.
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American Historians ussually break up the Renaissance and the middle ages with the fall of Constantinople
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Yeah, there are different ways to make that cut.
Some say Columbus, some say Fall of Byzantine…. I don’t think that you can make that up on one event. It happened around 1500, that’s good enough for me :)
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